Harley Potter - The Black Cat
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: Running away from the Dursleys, and losing her innocence as a child along the way Harley Potter discovers the superstition of the black cat and adopts it for a use of crime among other things. - A collection of short stories of Harley's life, and Rated M for sex.
1. Chapter 1 Escape from Privet Drive

Foreword - Sometime ago I conducted an experiment with forewords, while it wasn't a success I have decided from now on to just put the disclaimer on the first chapter and not bother with it from then on.

I know from the title that many will think the Fem Harry character in this story is going to join up with Spider-Man. I'm only going to say this once - it will not happen. THIS IS NOT A SPIDER-MAN CROSSOVER. I'm sorry, but Harley is going to be an ordinary girl (with magic), and she is going to be her own character.

I don't own Harry Potter.

Enjoy!

* * *

Harley Potter - The Black Cat.

Harley slowly opened the door of the bedroom she was staying in for a brief spell at Mrs Figg's place while the Dursleys went on one of their annual holidays. She was glad of the peace, especially after recently. Once when she had been younger, Harley had been upset with the Dursleys for going off on their own without her, but as time passed she realised it was better; at least with Mrs Figg, she would have a nice bedroom and food instead of a cot in a cramped Cupboard under the Stairs and nothing but scraps from the table.

She peeked out and scanned the landing for any sign of Mrs Figg, but she relaxed when she heard the sounds of snoring coming from the old woman's bedroom.

She slowly let out a quiet breath, and she winced at the residual pain in her torso that was caused by her Uncle's last beating and walked out of the bedroom. It was three am according to the small, battered clock with the half-illuminated dial in the bedroom she was staying in. Everyone with any sense would be asleep at this time, except for people who wanted to do something that was against the law or secretive. Even better, this house wasn't filled with a family who was paranoid and touchy about what she said or did. All she had was a mad old woman who barely knew what day it was.

In short, it was the best time she had to escape.

Harley walked out of the bedroom slowly while she shuffled her feet slowly down the short passage to the stairs and she smirked when she came to the first step leading down. She slowly walked down and headed for the living room when she reached the bottom. She carefully walked into the living room and switched on the light so she could see what she was doing.

She looked around and saw several of the cats were watching her, but she walked over to them and stroked them gently to assure them she wasn't going to give them any trouble. When she was finished she walked over to the bureau. Mrs Figg had never allowed her to look inside it, even on days where she seemed more out of it than normal, but Hardly wasn't interested in what the reasons for that were. She was more interested in finding some cash.

Harley knew Mrs Figg had put money in here; she had often seen the money either Vernon or Petunia had handed the old woman to pay her for looking after her whenever they didn't want her to mess up one of Dudley's loud and awful birthdays or even Christmases or when they went on holidays go into this very bureau. The amounts varied depending on what the occasion was, but she knew when it came to one of the Dursley's holidays, Mrs Figg had been paid a lot.

Now she was going to need the cash.

It was ironic, really; the Dursleys had paid the woman to look after her, but in truth, it was going to open up doors to a new life.

She opened the bureau up and she found the drawer easily enough; she had watched the old woman carefully when Vernon had handed her the cash to pay for her upkeep and to give her an incentive to look after the five-year-old girl. As she opened it and found the notes inside, Harley took them out and began to count out the cash.

While she did that she wondered if she should be ashamed of what she was doing or not, or whether the way her heart was pounding in her chest with excitement and anticipation.

She had to escape now.

Harley had no intention of forgetting what was at stake here, especially after what had been going on for the last few months. Vernon had upped the abuse since her fifth birthday, but then it had been growing increasingly worse and worse as she had grown older, so it wasn't that surprising. Harley would never forget how the last beating, which took place about three days before the Dursleys were meant to leave on holiday, had resulted in a terrible night in the Cupboard while she sobbed her heart out from the pain. Harley was still recovering from the beating which had resulted in her being blackened with bruised skin.

As usual, she hadn't done anything, but since when had the Dursleys ever needed an excuse for beating her?

As she had recovered in the Cupboard, she had cursed her parents for dying in the car crash and she had wondered what she had done to deserve being beaten by the Dursleys. But as she had listened to her aunt and uncle in the living room when Dudley had been taken up to his bed, his laughs ringing in her ear as he had seen her being beaten up, she could hear that Petunia was not sure about the beatings herself.

The Dursleys had clearly been under the delusion she was asleep otherwise they wouldn't have spoken, but either way Harley hadn't cared. Petunia had argued with Vernon, saying that there was verbal and mental abuse, and there was physical abuse. Vernon believed strongly in the physical side - he called it 'punishment' though Harley had come to suspect it was punishment for being alive because she often went out of the way to keep out of their way so they would not get tempted though Dudley had gotten a kick out of getting her into trouble, but Petunia didn't seem to think so, though if the older woman had felt any sympathy for her niece, Harley couldn't hear it, and to be honest she would not have believed it possible. Petunia had never shown an ounce of sympathy towards her ever, not once. All Harley had gotten from the haggis emotional and verbal abuse. In the end, since they were not getting anywhere with the debate, they had talked about their holiday plans and how it would get them away from Harley.

The girl had heard from the Cupboard they would drop her off at Mrs Figg's house and they wouldn't see her for a few weeks. While she had been recovering from her injuries while the Dursleys had made the preparations to leave for the holiday, Harley had been deep in thought. The Dursleys were getting worse, and sooner or later Harley feared she was going to die because of one of their beatings. It wasn't hard to believe; Vernon had snapped one of her legs when she had been three years old after she had accidentally spilt hot coffee on his own leg, but now the injuries were getting worse and worse, and even longer for her to recover. Harley had noticed she had a strangely fast healing factor, but she had no desire to test it too much; everything had limits, and she had no desire to see what she couldn't heal from.

In the end, she had laid in the Cupboard when she wasn't being worked to death by the family and thought about what she wanted to do with her life, and in the end, she had a realisation.

She didn't want to die. She wanted to live. But if she stayed with the Dursleys, who were moving on from bruising her to snapping her legs or even strangling her until she lost consciousness or worse, then she wouldn't live to see twenty, never mind six. Knowing the Dursleys, they would just bury her somewhere and forget she had ever existed, and everyone in Little Whinging would buy it, hook, line and sinker.

When she had made that realisation, the girl had come up with a plan to escape Number 4. She would wait quietly for a few days and escape when she was at Mrs Figgs. It would have to be with the old woman; she may have been as mad as a hatter with her obsession with cats, but security in her place was much more relaxed than it was in Number 4. When she had arrived, Harley had watched carefully what the old woman did, and within two days she had learnt the old woman's patterns.

Mrs Figg went to bed at around 9 pm, but before that she would put all of the cats out for the night to do their business though some of the lazier ones would still be in the house. While the cats were out of the house, Mrs Figg would be pottering around the kitchen doing this and that, though Harley still had no idea what in the world was making that awful cabbage smell that stank the place out, though she no longer cared since she would rather spend time in a house that was different to Petunia's, although Harley's instinct which had been honed from long years of working in Number 4 for her aunt and uncle kept telling her to clean the place up.

When the cats returned, Mrs Figg would lock the door and turn the lights off.

Mostly.

Sometimes the old woman would forget to lock the door, though whether that was forgetfulness or carelessness, Harley didn't know and frankly did not care.

Harley finished counting out the money before she nodded in satisfaction. There was more than enough there to get her as far from Little Whinging as possible, and hopefully, it would be more than enough for her to live off for a while before she came up with another plan - wait, that was that? Harley frowned when she found a photograph inside the bureau, only she thought she could see something strange about it. She reached out and took it out and held it up to the light, and when she took a good look at it she gaped in surprise.

_How is this possible? _

The picture showed a group of strange-looking people, one of whom looked grizzled and had scary looking gouges in his skin. Some of them were wearing clothes that looked like they had come from a costume drama set a hundred years before, though one man, a tall, thin elderly man with a long white beard wore robes of all things and looked like the stereotypical image of a wizard (Harley flinched at the word, the ingrained fear she had of anything to do with magic since it caused the Dursleys to react with a combination of fear and rage and panic, which caused her a lot of pain and made her very worried whenever the word was even mentioned on telly), but that was not the only odd thing about the picture.

The people in the photograph were _**moving!**_

Harley put the photograph down when she noticed sheafs of some strange paper right underneath where the photograph had been placed, and she reached out for them curiously so she could try to understand what she had just seen, but when she read the letters her eyes widened in disbelief.

Some of them were draft copies of letters written by Mrs Figg to a man called Albus Dumbledore. As she read through the letters, Harley became slowly more and more astonished.

They were reports on her upbringing at the Dursleys and Harley came to realise the old woman was not as out of it as she had thought originally. Harley read how the old woman had been watching over her all this time for this man Dumbledore, but as she read through the letters Harley became increasingly aware of how worried the old woman was becoming by their clear abuse from the Dursleys even though…. _it was going according to plan? _

_**What?**_

_Why would Mrs Figg or this old man want me to be beaten by the Dursleys…? _Harley thought to herself.

As she read through the letters, Harley was left numbed with shock as she learnt about the existence of the Magical World. She herself was a witch, a famous celebrity who had apparently defeated a wicked old wizard which had resulted in the deaths of her own parents - Harley found a few references to her parents, mostly her mother; apparently her mother had used some kind of spell to protect her from the evil wizard, and Dumbledore had capitalised on that same protection when he had handed her to Aunt Petunia.

Apparently the protections were blood-based, and as long as Harley called the place home and lived there, she was safe and sound. The only problem was that was absolutely bogus. She had never felt safe or loved by the Dursleys, and she knew she never would even if Dumbledore had genuinely cared for her.

So what was with the abuse? What was the point? What was happening? Harley realised the letters were not going to tell her. Dumbledore didn't say a word about that, or about the plan since he and Figg knew it only too well. But as she read through the letters sent and received by Mrs Figg, it was clear some people were not happy about it. And they had their own agendas where she was concerned. After learning about the so-called plan which seemed to hinge on her being beaten up, Harley read through the letters to try to find out more details, but there were none; clearly the sender and recipient of the letters had known what the plan was and didn't see the point in putting down too many details on paper, or whatever this was. She idly wondered if the wizarding world even used paper, or used something else.

Harley read through one of the old man's letters. It was, in fact, the most recent letter, written within a few days of the beating she had received from Vernon.

"_My dear Arabella, _

_Thank you for writing to me. I was concerned about the success of the enchantments I had placed on Number Four Privet Drive to bolster the aggression towards young Harleen Potter. While I share your concerns towards the welfare of the girl, there is no need to worry (_Harley snorted in disbelief), _the enchantments are designed to ensure the long-term aims of the plan are met. _

"_Thank you for informing me beforehand about those women who alerted the Muggle Aurors (_Harley crinkled her eyes at the two words as she tried to work out what they meant, but there was no clue there in the handwriting) _before they interfere. I have had to deal with thirteen separate incidents, which you informed me about just in time, and I have had to deal with three separate escape attempts from the girl, although the enchantments I placed on her clothes made sure she didn't get far; I will have to adjust the enchantments on the Dursleys so they do not beat her too badly, and the time they are on holiday will give the opportunity. I should hopefully arrive on the 16-"_

_**The sixteenth?!**_

_Wasn't that…tonight? _Harley thought to herself desperately, shoving the papers back into the bureau. She began panicking and started to pace up and down and thought about her plans. She had thought if she could grab the money from the bureau, she could escape and get out of here, but now she found it wasn't that easy.

_What do I do? _Harley thought to herself desperately. _That old man could be coming to the house at any moment, and if he finds me awake, what will he do? Wait a second. Why am I panicking? Why don't I use this as an opportunity to escape? But how do I make sure he can't track me down? I tried to escape before, and other people have tried to get me away from the Dursleys? _

Harley remembered how a teacher, Miss Hamilton had noticed the abuse and how no-one seemed to have cared. Miss Hamilton had raised almighty hell, she had tried to get social services and the police involved…

And then she had been fired from her job and Harley had no idea what had happened to her. The police had gone away as had social services, deeming it a _misunderstanding _although what had happened to the woman, Harley didn't know. The girl had formed a few ideas at the time, and remembered the woman with bitterness. Now she silently apologised to the woman for thinking the worst of her.

Was Dumbledore also responsible for Little Whinging turning a blind eye towards the abuse as well? Harley was starting to think so. She had also come to suspect that because she was seen as a freak by the Dursleys, they were allowed to get away with what they did, though it hadn't made sense when Miss Hamilton and others had gotten involved.

_How long has this gone on for? _she asked.

What was the point?

Unfortunately, the only person who could answer was her enemy.

But the girl was terrified of something else, something horrifying that had come into her mind. It just popped in and stayed there, scaring her to death. What if Dumbledore found out about her plan and wiped her memory of the event?

With that in mind, Harley reached out and grabbed a piece of paper from the bureau and a pen and wrote a quick note before she shoved it into her pocket and continued to think through what she had just found out. None of it was really hopeful about her chances now.

But what had the wizards done? As she thought about it, Harley realised she could still escape. She had seen Mrs Figg's neighbours who had children themselves although the old woman never seemed to interact with them were around Harley's own age. If these enchantments were on her clothes, then she could easily get rid of them, although she had no idea if Dumbledore hadn't placed spells on other clothes. Harley hadn't found any other indication that he had in the letters Mrs Figg still kept for some weird reason, but Harley saw no reason why she couldn't leave still.

She would have to move quickly. Turning off the light switch, Harley walked upstairs quietly and she took a look out of the window in her bedroom. She couldn't see anything in the darkness, but when she had been getting ready for bed she had been admiring Mrs Figg's garden which was far different from the Dursleys. Mrs Figg grew her own food, and there were places where the old woman grew carrots, cabbages, onions, potatoes, and many other things.

But when she had looked over at her neighbours, Harley had noticed the washing line up and the mother of the children pinning the clothes out for drying. Harley hoped they were still there.

Swallowing her disappointment down for not being able to see though she was aware there was little she could do about it, Harley left her bedroom and went back downstairs. If there was one thing she loved about being here at Mrs Figg even though the old woman annoyed her with her never-ending obsession with the cat photographs which she showed Harley every time she came around, it was the fact Harley could come and go as she pleased and Mrs Figg would not mind.

Well, she wouldn't have to concern herself with this plan for longer.

As she walked to the backdoor and tried it, and found it locked, Harley sighed and unlocked it slowly before she stepped outside. She took a moment to savour the air. It was so sweet, cool.

Harley shook her head; she was trying to escape, not admire the night. She walked through the garden, not really caring if she stepped in any cat pee or poo. It seemed to take an age to reach the back gate, and she out in the alleyway. She slowly walked down, terrified and nervous this was not going to work before she reached the neighbours' gate.

_It's so easy to break into someone's garden, _she thought to herself as she grabbed hold of a bin and turned it upside down before she climbed up it, and jumped over the fence. It took Harley only a few minutes to reach the washing line, but she had a problem finding what she wanted; some of the clothes were too big for her, and it took her a few minutes as a result before she found what she was looking for. Harley held the still damp clothes, and she reached a decision to strip out of the clothes the Dursleys had given her, and she put on what she had found right there and then in the garden. She flinched when she felt the still damp clothes touch her skin, but she ignored it as she went back to the gate. Now she was inside the garden, she had no trouble unlocking the gate from here and she walked out and back into the alley.

Harley jogged lightly to the entrance of the alley and looked left and right. There wasn't anyone in sight, but she had no idea if Dumbledore was out there or not. She took a deep breath and she hoped the note she had written to herself in case Dumbledore did something wouldn't be needed, but this was the most delicate part of her newly rethought plan.

_Get a grip, Harley, _she chided herself and she kept walking but she walked carefully and quietly and every time she heard a sound, like a cat meowing, or a car in the distance, she would pause and wait and she looked around in terror as if expecting a wizard to appear out of thin air and force her back to Privet Drive to fulfil this plan. It seemed to take Harley all night to make the trip to the railway station. It was shut up, but that okay. she would wait for it to reopen.

As she sat outside, shivering in the cold, Harley closed her eyes and said quietly but clearly, "Number 4 Privet Drive is not my home. It is never my home. I hate the Dursleys, they hate me. They are not my family. Aunt Petunia will never love me. Number 4 Privet Drive is not my home."

* * *

Albus Dumbledore felt a chill go down his spine as he felt the Blood Wards he had placed on the property of Harleen Potter's relatives suddenly collapse; the Wards were in a terrible state, and they were only held up because of the connection he had placed on the girl a month after she had been placed here, so they were regenerated with the magic of the girl herself.

It had surprised Albus with how soon such work would be needed; he had assumed the hatred towards the girl would not cause a near collapse until she had been here a year, but it was no problem because he had expected it. Dumbledore had always wanted his weapon to grow up here. He needed to know if the age-old hypothesis of 'nature vs nurture' was true. He had seen the results in Tom Riddle, and he had never acted because at the time he had not felt it was the duty of teachers to interfere. That result had formed the monster known as Lord Voldemort.

Dumbledore had no intention of letting it happen again. He had no desire to create a new monster out of the young Potter girl, who was now the last of her family though he wasn't upset about that since the Ancient and Noble families had given him problems in the past. But it was necessary for her to go through the same pain as Riddle did, only hers would be on a more personal level since Petunia was her blood family to give her the perspective she would need, but also when he met her personally when she was eleven she would be indebted towards him for getting her out of here. It would form a bond between them both and make her obedient towards him.

Dumbledore was sometimes amazed and yet frustrated by how far envious people would go in order to get revenge. Severus and Petunia had both fallen into his plans quite nicely with their hatred for the girl; Severus hated her because Lily had gone with James, although that was truly Severus' fault for calling her a Mudblood. Petunia had always had insecurities about her appearance and her talents, and she had envied her sister Lily for her beauty and talents.

The envy Snape had towards James had transmuted into hatred, as had the envy Petunia had for Lily, and both of them had transferred their hatred onto Harleen.

Dumbledore didn't care for any of it since it was a means to an end. But in the case of the Dursleys, Dumbledore had felt he had needed to make sure the young girl was beaten and abused in case Petunia's hatred didn't go that far. It was a hard thing for him to do, but if he wanted his weapon to do what he wanted, then some sacrifices had to be made.

In a way, he had been pleased the Dursleys wouldn't be here because then he would be able to examine the wards without the subjects inside the property. But the moment he felt the wards go down he panicked and he disapparated over to Arabella's and quickly checked on the girl. He had often needed to come to this bedroom to ensure the charms he had placed on her to limit her magical potential were in place.

The bed was empty.

Dumbledore felt his heart go cold at the sight.

The brat was gone.


	2. Chapter 2 Pickpockets in Brighton

To the idiot who reviewed the first short story of this collection:

Why don't you write a supposedly original Harry Potter story? I can guarantee it has already been done. In any case, the Dursleys were hateful in canon so why should it be different in Fanfiction?

To other readers - my apologies but I needed to get that off my chest. I am tired of people telling me my stories are cliched when they haven't even written a story before.

* * *

Harley Potter - The Black Cat.

The calls of the seagulls woke Harley up from her already uncomfortable sleep. The small girl winced as she felt the hard brick she was resting on behind her back - she hadn't had a very comfortable night's sleep, and resting with her back to a brick wall had not helped her one little bit. Harley stood up slowly and taking off her small sleeping bag which she'd purchased from a shop a few weeks ago, wincing as she got up before she looked around. She was in the Brighton North Laines after deciding to doss in the small doorway of one of the shops.

In the shadows of the night, Harley was able to get some sleep and with her dark coloured clothes and the navy blue of her secondhand sleeping bag, she was practically invisible.

"I can't keep doing this," she muttered to herself as she took a look around.

The street was practically empty, though there were one or two people nearby though they were too far away to have noticed the small child nearby. Harley wasn't bothered one way or another; she was used to being ignored, and although she had checked the newspapers to see if anyone was looking for her or had reported her missing by now, Harley just could not take the risk someone like Mrs Figg or the school might have done it.

She didn't care. She was a long way from Surrey, and truthfully the further away from Number 4, the better she felt.

In any case, Harley had a good idea of why no-one was really giving her a lot of attention after what she had just found out about herself and her past.

Harley had time to think while she rolled up her sleeping bag - she had learnt very quickly shop owners didn't like it when homeless people used their doorways like a shelter, and more than once she had needed to get away from well-meaning people who kept trying to stop her from sleeping in places like this by calling in the police. Harley had always run away because she had no idea if any of those same police officers were under Dumbledore's thumb, and besides, she had managed to survive on the streets of Brighton ever since she had arrived here. Alright, so she hated having to doss in doorways, and she had learnt to find places when it was particularly wet and windy, and sometimes scrounging out for food and water was hard, but so far she had survived.

Harley finished rolling her sleeping bag up and she shoved it into the backpack she had bought shortly before she had gotten out of London. It had shaken her that she had managed to get out of London so easily; she would have thought a small girl travelling by herself would have garnered a few looks, but she had really not _wanted to be seen, never mind bothered _and so she wasn't.

Harley suspected that she had used her magical powers to stop people from noticing her, and indeed in the early hours, she put a lot of thought into hoping _no-one _noticed her.

_I wonder if I can do the same with other spells, _Harley thought to herself, wishing she had the help of an experienced witch to teach her her powers. If there was one thing she disliked about being on her own, it was that she had no-one to teach her anything about magic.

She remembered all the incidents where things happened around her, things that had resulted in a terrible beating from Vernon. _All magic, _she thought to herself with a grimace, remembering how many wasted chances she'd had to learn more about magic. She also wondered for a moment about why the Dursleys hated her before she decided not to dwell on it right now. She had a lot more to concern herself with. Harley blew out a breath as she straightened her light but warm coat and she walked out of the street.

This was what her life was, now, really; she would sleep in one place, wake up, find whatever she could eat with the money she got from begging (Harley wondered if she had used her magic to persuade people to give her small change and maybe even a few notes, and her desire to survive in this new world had something to do with it), while at the same time explore Brighton.

Despite the way she lived her life now, Harley actually quite liked Brighton. She loved being close to the sea now, but then she had longed to see it from the moment she had seen pictures of the ocean as a younger child. Her desire had grown even more since the Dursleys always went on holiday.

Harley knew the Dursleys did it out of spite. They knew how much she had wanted to be a normal kid, normal being loved instead of reviled…

Harley shook her head as she got herself something to eat, hoping to keep the shop owners who were serving her food from truly paying her any attention while she kept on walking.

Her legs were exhausted when she got to the beach, but she pushed it aside as she came to a stop on the small, gentle slope going down into the sea. She smiled and she sat down and watched as the sea pulled back and then crashed back on the pebbles before it was pulled back. She always came down here to eat when she could, never once getting bored with the beautiful view the sea.

She would just…sit down. Sit and stare at the sea, listening to the seagulls, and trying hard to stop them nicking her food from her.

She often thought about everything that had happened to her.

When she had left Privet Drive, Harley had waited outside the railway station for dawn. She had walked into the station nervously with the ticket that she had purchased from the automatic ticket machine before she had caught an early morning train - she had seen it work when she had been forced to go with Aunt Petunia and Dudley into London when Vernon was not around.

Petunia had not liked that, Harley remembered, but with no-one willing to babysit and Mrs Figg herself unavailable - Harley didn't know the details and it didn't matter now - she hadn't had much choice. And besides, she had only needed one look at how the ticket machine worked for her to get the basics of how it worked.

When Harley had reached Victoria she had headed down for Brighton - she hadn't known for sure where Dumbledore and his people would look when they realised she was gone, but she was sure they were looking for her. London was a big city, but she wasn't going to leave anything to chance. At the same time, she decided to use the opportunity to travel down to the coast to form a new life, preferably as far from the Dursleys as she could get.

This was just her enjoying her freedom. The only problem was she had little idea what to do next: when she had left Number 4 and Little Whinging behind she had originally imagined her biggest problem was simply getting away, but the existence of magic and the revelation some old wizard had some grand plan for keeping her locking her up at Number 4 in the first place only complicated things.

When she had come up with the plan for escaping Number 4, Harley had thought it would be straightforward. All she had needed to be was patient while she waite for the Dursley's holiday while she waited at Mrs Figg's place where she would wait for a short time while the Dursleys were gone, and leave one night. Then she would escape. She would travel as far as she could get while no-one was suspicious, and then she would lie low again in case the Dursleys tried looking for her. At the same time, she would pick up skills to survive on the streets before she went to the police and give them a false name and hope they didn't make any connection in case she was being looked for. Harley didn't know if it would happen; the school had never particularly given a toss about her, though now she was sure magic had been involved.

Magic….

Just thinking about how one old man had messed her life up shocked Harley, but what made it worse was she didn't even understand the point. What was going on?

But all she did know was magic had complicated matters even more. Originally she had thought she could simply find a new place to live while being as far from the Dursleys as she could get; the Dursleys wouldn't care, but even if the did try to find her after a couple of weeks it would have been too late.

After a short while, she had thought at the time when she had thought up her plan to escape the Dursleys, she could go to the police and get herself put into foster care after lying low for a period of time.

But with Dumbledore, a wizard….

Just…thinking about the way the old wizard had manipulated and messed her life up, ensuring she stayed at the Dursleys. Harley just didn't understand what the point was, except there was an agenda, though what it was she didn't know.

In the end, Harley decided it didn't matter.

But the police…

Although after what she had learnt about the magical world and what Dumbledore had been doing made her realise that the people whom should have been helping her hadn't turned away because they had thought she was faking, because of the manipulations of an old wizard…

Truthfully, Harley had _no _idea how she should feel, to be honest.

But she knew she would never trust authority.

Never.

Not ever again.

She would never forget the number of times she had trusted authority, told _someone _what was going on in that house of horror, what Vernon was doing to her from the day she had become old enough and therefore strong enough to take the beatings, only to be let down and forced to undergo something worse than usual…

All because of a wizard….

Something told her she would eventually discover what the agenda was, though the chances were she was not going to like it. If she ever encountered Dumbledore, and she was sure of it, then she would need to be ready. When she had learnt she herself was a witch Harley had wondered if she could teach herself magic, but aside from herself wondering if her desire to go unnoticed had something to do with her powers, she hadn't had that much luck.

Harley finished her meal and stood up, wondering just how many of her plans had been screwed. She had decided to double the time she spent on the streets without being found before she looked to the police to help her, though she wondered if Dumbledore had done something to ensure she didn't alert the authorities about what the Dursleys had been doing to her, or if he had someone monitor her to alert him at once if someone was paying a lot of attention to her.

As Harley explored Brighton, feeling the sun beating down on her back, she headed straight for the Churchill Square to the shops. She spent twenty minutes looking around, but as she was looking around she spotted something. Three kids, a couple of them around her age - two girls and one boy, maybe a little older - it was hard for her to tell - were clustered around a pair of older ladies who looked as ancient as Mrs Figg except not as loopy. Harley frowned as she noticed one of the kids, the boy who had a shock of light brown hair standing behind the two old ladies while the other two were speaking to them.

What was happening?

Harley continued to watch as the two ladies were distracted by the two younger girls, while the boy carefully and slowly lifted out the purses out of their handbags. Harley gasped as she realised what she was seeing, and she mentally punched herself for being so thick. The girls were busily distracting the older ladies while the boy went through their handbags and stole their purses. They were pickpockets. The girls acted as a distraction while the boy did the work.

As she watched them with interest Harley realised practically they were her only hope. While she had her own plans to go to the police and get herself put into the foster system and hopefully putting distance between herself and the Dursleys though she had no idea if it would work on a wizard like Dumbledore, Harley had no idea what she would be doing in the interim.

But now looking at the sight of three pickpockets Harley realised what she could be doing to help her survive in case foster care was yet another bitter disappointment for her since she had no idea if it was going to be as cursed there as it had been in the prison that was life in Little Whinging.

Harley walked over to the three pickpockets curiously, her mind still racing as she tried to work out what she was going to do, how she was going to get this gang to accept her. None of the kids whom she had wanted to be friends with as a child had really accepted her, thanks to Dudley's threats, but because of those experiences and her time on the streets it had been a long time since Harley had spoken to anybody else.

* * *

She followed the gang as they walked away from the old ladies - Harley almost snickered when she happened to overhear the two old women comment on the good manners of those children, she wondered whether they would change their tunes when they discovered what had happened to their cash, but she didn't care - and she watched them from afar while making sure she was quite close to them since she didn't want to lose them.

_Idiots, _she thought in disdain as she noticed one or two of the people the kids stole off didn't realise what was going on, _still, they're good. I hope they do help me. I need all the help I can get. _

Harley observed the trio use the same technique more than once, on different people. As she observed them she noticed that they took it in turns, and they did it smoothly as well with no fights - it was obvious to her these pickpockets had been doing this for a while, but she wasn't sure if they were, like herself, living on the streets or if they had family but this was just their way of getting more pocket money.

At the same time, Harley noticed that one of the girls was older than the other two, though the boy was quite close to her in terms of age, whereas the third child was clearly younger. She noticed the three of them shared traits. All of them shared the same light brown hair, the same moonlike face and the same eyes though she couldn't see what colour they were.

She didn't care.

All she was interested in was trying to find a way to make them accept her.

Harley followed them around, doing her best to remain unnoticed. Finally, she followed them to a shop that was being rented out but was clearly not being used for anything just yet. She watched them silently as they went in through the backdoor and she followed them in, willing herself to be noticed.

"Hello?" she called. "Hi!"

"Who are you?" a childish voice asked and Harley turned and smiled when she saw one of the girls whom she had seen with the boy and the other girl.

"Hello," Harley smiled at her, hoping that whatever it was that put other people off her worked here as well. "I watched you come in. Mind if I stay with you?"

"That's up to my brother and my sister," the girl said, looking at her hesitantly.

_So they are related, _Harley thought to herself as she tried to work out how she could take advantage of this… Pushing that aside now she could hear soft footsteps coming closer, Harley smiled at the girl. "My name's Harley, nice to meet you," she said.

"Why are you here?" The footsteps had stopped and now Harley turned when she heard the voice. She saw the boy standing there, looking at her with worry.

"My name is Harley," Harley repeated herself, smiling at the boy, mentally cursing herself for not spending that much time with other homeless children so then she could pick up what to do and what not to do.

"What do you want?" the boy asked, sounding more guarded rather than dismissive like the kids at Stonewall Primary. Good. That was hopeful.

Harley had been mentally preparing herself for this encounter, but she had no idea what to say without these three kids losing it. "I saw you picking those pockets over at Churchill Square," she said finally.

The boy and the girl stiffened, though the girl who was much younger than either her two siblings looked like she was about to cry. Harley noticed the younger girl's reaction out of the corner of her eye, and while she felt bad she had no intention of breaking her story off.

"Are you gonna tell on us?" the boy asked.

Harley shook her head, ignoring the sounds of footsteps and guessed the elder sister was coming to investigate what was going on. "No," she replied. "I want to join. I want to learn how to pick people's pockets."

"Who do you wanna do that?" Harley turned and saw the elder sister, watching her curiously with some worry that was identical to her brother's. Harley studied the three of them who were now close enough for her to judge and she took a moment to think about what she saw. It was clear all three of them had been living rough for a while so they had no reason to trust her.

"I'll make you a deal. You answer a few of my questions, and then I'll answer some of yours. How does that sound?" Harley compromised; she knew she was pushing the limits, but aside from her own guesses about these three, she wasn't going to say anything unless she had all of the facts.

The girl bit her lip and frowned in a manner that said it was taking all of her patience to agree. "Okay.

"Do you live here?" Harley asked simply, waving a hand around the empty shop.

The girl looked around for a bit and then nodded reluctantly, clearly not liking having to admit it. "Yeah, we do. We've been living here for over two months," she added.

The younger sister piped up, drawing Harley's attention back to her. "We left our dad because he couldn't look after us after mummy left us."

Harley turned to the older sister. "Is that true, what happened?"

The elder sister sighed but not before she sent a mild glare towards her little sister, clearly, she didn't like being reminded about what had happened and that they didn't want their uninvited guest to learn too much, though truthfully Harley didn't care about their reasons. "Our mother just went out to work as normal. But she never came back. We later received a letter saying she was not coming back for us. Life was hard for us, especially since our dad," the girl spat the word so there was clearly no love there, "couldn't hold down a job. Our mum was always overstressed; she had to work, cook and clean for us, although we helped, and our dad did nothing. He is like a kid trapped in a man's body. Anyway, he slapped Colleen and she went to school the next day with a massive bruise on her face, sobbing her heart out."

"And social services were called in," Harley filled in the gaps, momentarily feeling jealous towards these three kids for having social services coming to get them out of that life whereas they had ignored her. It was petty and stupid, especially since she now knew about Dumbledore's involvement and meddling in her life. But that didn't mean she couldn't help but feel jealous.

To her surprise the mention of social services made the three other kids look annoyed, though in the little girl's eyes Harley could see the onset of tears.

"W-what happened?" she asked.

"Social was going to split us up," the brother replied, holding onto a scared Colleen's shoulder.

"They didn't have a foster placement for three of us, just two. We'd have lost Colleen," the elder sister finished making Harley flinch and curse her own lack of experience with social services, though now she wondered if it would have been bad at all, though she wasn't going to comment on it, "so we had to escape. We've been living on the streets ever since. We started pickpocketing soon after when we had trouble getting enough to eat or drink."

"I understand," Harley replied, getting the picture now.

And indeed she could.

In a way, these kids had lived much as she had. Sure, she had never had her own mother walk out on her, but she had lived in fear of her own life which had been one of the most important reasons behind her decision to leave Privet Drive.

But what these kids had gone through was worse in two ways to what she'd endured. Harley didn't have siblings to miss, but if she'd had a younger sibling and social or someone else wanted to take that sibling away from her, then she wouldn't have hesitated to have run away either.

The second point was the fear they both held for what could have happened if they had stayed. For her it had been Vernon, who she could see one day going too far and when he came out of his rage-induced violence he would see he had gone too far. It wouldn't have surprised Harley in the least if her thug of an uncle would have buried her someplace as far from the house as possible while Petunia struggled to clean out the blood soaking her precious carpets and the car, both knowing if they took the car to the garage to get it cleaned out, then the police would be on top of them before they could blink.

The Dursleys were stupid, but not that stupid.

In the case of these kids, they would have been scared of what their father would have done. Harley didn't know what their family life had been like, though her abuse-riddled mind had to wonder to herself if the reason their mother had left was that she was sick of looking at them, though she wasn't going to say anything of that kind to them.

"It's our turn now," the brother said, folding his arms and staring at Harley as if expecting she would be trouble. "Where are you from?"

"Surrey, originally," Harley replied, thankful that they were moving on with the topic and she had the chance to tell them what she wanted from them, "My parents died a long time ago, and I was dropped off on my aunt and uncle's doorstep. Literally. They did not like that."

"When you say dropped off, do you mean-?" the elder sister asked, looking at Harley with horror.

Harley nodded, knowing what the other girl was thinking. "I was a baby at the time," she said softly, remembering all the times her aunt and uncle had yelled at her, saying they had never wanted her at all but that she had been foisted on them in the middle of the night by someone Harley guessed was Dumbledore though she had no intention of telling them anything like that. "I don't know why whoever did it didn't knock on the door and let my relatives know what had happened to my parents, so don't ask. All I know is my relatives didn't like it, not one little bit; my aunt hated my mother, and my uncle was just a hateful, spiteful man in general. He's very handy if you know what I mean," Harley added, using a description she had picked up somewhere, "with me. I don't know if he's capable of fighting other men, but I don't care. But the moment I was put into their care, they blamed me for anything even if I wasn't there. They made me do everything in their home, from the cooking to the cleaning. They also beat me. It got worse as I grew older."

The siblings looked at each other in horror. Whatever they had been expecting, it was not that.

"H-how did you get out?" the elder sister asked while the younger girl looked like she was about to cry at the thought of someone going that far to a child.

Harley sighed. "I waited for a chance to escape when their holiday came up; my relatives always sent me off to a neighbour who has an obsession with cats in a cabbage smelling house. But she's not as paranoid as my relatives. I chose my chance and escaped. I went to London, got a train, and came all the way down here."

"And no-one thought that was odd?" the brother asked.

Harley shrugged. "I don't know what was going through their minds," she replied, and she decided to show them the worst of the Dursley's abuse. She took off her jacket and her shirt and showed them the injuries she had taken from Vernon Dursley, the ones that had scarred. She smiled when she heard their gasps when she had her back turned.

"Will you help me?" she asked.

Harley looked from the elder children to the youngest. She had no intention of ditching the three of them. These three had a skill she felt could benefit herself. Truthfully she didn't know or see any clear reason why they would refuse to help her. They had a lot in common. So why would they refuse?

The elder sister looked at her with narrowed eyes and then nodded. "You can stay," she said.

* * *

Five weeks.

It was amazing how much your life can change in just five short weeks. To a child, a fortnight or a month was like an eternity. To a child, it felt like a thousand years to Christmas.

For Harley Potter who had escaped from her abusive family five weeks ago while she had waited for a short period of time for the holiday where her relatives would be leaving her behind with a mad cat-woman for a couple of weeks, and security would be so lax it would be easy, those five weeks had changed her entire life, and yet she felt as if her entire world had been turned upside down.

Sure, the magical thing had surprised her. The fact her entire life had been meddled in by one man with an agenda, who for some reason she couldn't yet work out at the moment, which involved her getting brutally beaten up while stopping the authorities from doing anything about it.

She smiled as she watched Colleen speaking to their latest target. It was a young woman about twenty or so years old. She looked foreign, but because Harley's knowledge of the different nations of the world was very limited, the young girl couldn't tell. Harley didn't care; unlike the Dursleys, who had never concealed their racist attitudes, she was neutral towards people from other countries simply because she hadn't really met any before to form an opinion of them.

But from what the elder sister, Vanessa, had told her after she and her brother Liam and Colleen had accepted her into the fold, tourists were always the best because since this was a country they knew nothing about, they were more readily taken in. Harley, despite being young, wondered about the logic of that; surely there were pickpockets in places outside Britain, right? Surely they couldn't be this stupid.

The tourist little Colleen was speaking with had her back turned so Harley could not see for herself what the woman's general reaction was, though Harley had been picking the pockets of tourists, acting as both the pickpocket and the distractor to notice the confusion and surprise on their faces each and every time.

The Dursleys were right about one thing, and Harley _did not _like admitting that; if foreigners came to another country, surely it would not kill them to learn somethings about the language. But still, she wouldn't say anything since their cash gave them more to live off.

Harley gently folded a small pamphlet she'd picked up somewhere and switched it to her right hand. Then she slowly lowered it to form a shield so no-one would see what she was doing, just like Vanessa and Liam had shown her while she slipped her hand into the handbag. She wasn't entirely sure if the pamphlet was necessary since she was willing herself not to be noticed, much like she had done when she had made her escape through London, and it seemed to be working.

But this was not the time to get into that.

She needed to completely concentrate on what she was doing. Taking a deep slow breath, Harley's fingers pinched the purses' corner and she felt a tingling sensation in her fingers while she breathed in and out gently before she took it out of the handbag slowly. She then transferred the purse to the pamphlet, sandwiching it in the folds of the pamphlet. Harley then slipped the purse into her own pocket before she nodded to Colleen, letting the little girl know she had finished.

Harley stood to the side while she waited for Colleen to come over to her, mentally thinking about what she had learnt with this little gang. She had been with the siblings for two weeks now. When she had first gone out with them, Vanessa and Liam had been responsible for picking the pockets and handbags of their victims while she and Colleen had distracted them. Harley hadn't been surprised when she had heard their plans. It made sense the older and more experienced pickpockets would be the ones to do the work at first for her to get used to it.

During that point, the siblings had been teaching her what to do and what not to do.

The siblings had revealed they hadn't been taught by anyone to pickpockets, all of their knowledge came from their own experiences. They revealed stories where they had made mistakes and came close to being caught out. Once Little Colleen herself had been grabbed, only for Vanessa to punch the man who was holding the little girl painfully by the arms in the gut while Liam had kicked him in the groin.

But the siblings had learnt from their mistakes, refining their work until they were better at what they did. And now they were teaching her their skills, making sure that they taught her about their own mistakes.

Harley was pleased they were patient. It took a while, but with some practice, she became better and better until she could pick Vanessa and Liam's pockets without them knowing about it. More than once she had done so to keep her nascent skills sharp, much to their surprise.

But when she had picked the pocket of the first man she saw, Harley had managed to do so without being noticed, and she had felt a great wave of power over what she had done surge through her.

She had done it, she was a pickpocket.

And over the weeks, the gang had changed their approach.

Originally because there had been three siblings, they had needed to take it in turns to pick the pockets of their victims. But when Harley had joined the gang, they had quickly seen the advantages because with four in the gang, two could pick the pockets or handbags while two others caused the distractions without putting the rest of the gang at risk.

The siblings had known the theory of just having two picking pockets of course, they weren't stupid or ignorant. But they were worried about little Colleen, who was the youngest and the timidest of the siblings. But with Harley around, the other siblings could double their takes. More than that, they could also practice their solo pickpocketing.

But the last two weeks had taken the issue off of Harley' s shoulders about what she was going to do next. Now she wasn't in a great hurry to find a policeman and tell him she was on her own, and she wanted to be fostered or something like that when deep down she was tired of being hungry and cold.

That didn't matter to her anymore.

Now there was food and money in abundance.

With these siblings, she had finally found a family.


	3. Chapter 3 Lost Lupin

Harley Potter - The Black Cat.

Remus Lupin simply could not win.

As he trudged sadly through the streets of Brighton while he ignored the passersby in the streets - it was funny, but for the son of a pureblood family and was subsequently taught to look down on muggles, muggle-borns, and magical creatures as inferior, Remus truly did not really care one bit for the prejudices since muggles weren't as bad as his supremacist father made out.

Alright, so sometimes they could be annoying at times, and it was impossible for them to know him, but Remus had met many nice muggles. His only problem was he couldn't find or hold down a full-time job thanks to the werewolf curse he'd carried with him for years.

In fact, in a way, Remus saw them as kindred spirits. At least they had no idea what he was, but that didn't mean life was peachy. It was so bad, thanks to those evil laws passed by people like Dolores Umbridge (oh, how he hated that woman who had somehow managed to become Fudge's chief hatchet woman, and was able to pass those evil and cruel laws onto the werewolf and vampire populace, which made life virtually intolerable for them) he was forced to live and work in the muggle world.

It was not by choice. If Remus had his way he would not have come out here. The risks were simply too great; muggles had no way of knowing werewolves existed, and if he attacked anyone or bit anybody, and they became werewolves, it would be a disaster for the Statute of Secrecy.

The good news was he had the shack his mother had prepared for him, complete with the bunker-like basement which would be locked down as soon as he transformed into his wolf form, so there was that at least.

Remus was relieved he had a way of preventing muggles from sharing his curse, and he thanked his mother for her foresight. She must have known he wouldn't have found any work, regardless of his qualifications from Hogwarts and prepared the shack for him to live in although he hated his life. At the same time, he wished he could hold down a job since his continual absences during the full-moon period made it hard.

He was still a werewolf, and at times he was completely immobilised as his body transformed into his werewolf form, his human reasoning completely lost.

To make matters worse, each time the transformation was due to come and when it finally ended, he was not himself, and it caused a lot of stress for him so he was incapable of holding down a job. Just like now. He honestly had no idea what he was going to do now he had lost yet another job.

Remus was so locked in his thoughts he ignored a passing child who was walking by completely by herself. But he came to his senses when her scent entered his nostrils, and he stopped in disbelief.

He knew that scent.

It had been….five years, but he remembered it so perfectly when James gently placed the source of the scent into his arms shortly after her birth.

_Harley? _

But it couldn't be.

He swung around and looked back at the girl, following her every movement as she walked down the street while his mind noted just _how small she was_.

Lily hadn't been a particularly tall girl at the age of eleven, but she had probably been taller than Harley was now.

His mind also was now whirring into overdrive now he was no longer thinking about himself. He was so confused. How was Harley here, in Brighton? What was she doing here? Had her relatives lost her? Why hadn't Dumbledore alerted anyone from the Order?

Either the old wizard had no idea Harley was here in Brighton or…. he didn't want to think of the possibility the old wizard had deliberately kept the whole matter quiet since it opened his mind to ideas he didn't want to even think about. Remus knew that Dumbledore had personally placed Harley in the care of her aunt, although Remus had concerns since he had only ever heard Lily say her sister was not a nice person, he had thought Dumbledore knew what he was doing.

Remus had hoped to meet Harley, but Dumbledore wouldn't have it.

The old headmaster had told Remus the girl was happy and fine, and that it wasn't a good idea for a strange man to show up whom the child didn't know.

Remus had taken umbrage with the way Dumbledore had said that. It also didn't help Dumbledore had said it was a bad idea for a werewolf to go near her in a muggle neighbourhood, and while he had resented the old wizards' remarks, he had taken them on board. He had listened and he promised himself he would meet the girl when she started attending Hogwarts. It sounded good in theory, but Remus couldn't help but feel guilty about it, even though he knew it wasn't a good idea to expose a child to a werewolf.

More than once over the last few years since Voldemort's fall from power, Remus had suffered from nightmares about what could happen if little Harley Potter became a werewolf herself, and shared in his curse. The nightmare which would inevitably follow should the Girl Who Lived (Remus honestly had no idea how the child had gotten that title; it wasn't the nicest title she could have received. He felt it bypassed the fact Lily and James had died) become a werewolf was not worth thinking about.

But still…

He had tried to send her letters and cards whenever he could afford them as a compromise to himself, to assuage his guilty conscience. She never replied, and he had the impression she didn't want to speak to him or anyone, which only served to keep him away.

He was just surprised to find her here, in Brighton. What was she doing here, was she and her relatives on holiday or something? As he watched her closely, his breath literally taken away in shock, his mind almost spiralling down into denial, he noticed the girl was trailing after a man. Remus's eyes widened in shock when he saw the girl sneak a hand into the man's pocket and come away with his wallet before she walked away before she disappeared from his view.

Harley was _pickpocket?_

No.

No, it couldn't be.

Why would she do that?

Realising that it was no good asking bloody stupid and pointless questions since the girl was getting away, Remus knew he had to get after Harley before she escaped.

Remus started heading back the way he did, sniffing the girl's scent, although he had trouble even with his nose. Honestly, why did muggles have to use cars that threw out that smelling waste? Remus growled underneath his breath, eliciting a few worried looks at the bestial sound he had just made, but he didn't care. The muggles weren't on his list of priorities. Harley was. It took the werewolf a few minutes before he picked up a faint trace of the girl's scent, but it was riddled with the air pollution around him. Remus headed in the general direction of the scent. It didn't get him too far. He found his way down another street. Remus closed his eyes in frustration. Honestly, what was it about the Potter family that made them so frustrating? Okay, granted, this one didn't even know he was there, but it was still frustrating. It was bad enough the scent of the girl was so faint it was virtually impossible for him just to get a trace of her here. But there were dozens of muggles here, some of them smelt awful - hadn't they ever heard of personal hygiene; even Mundungus Fletcher had better hygiene than they did, and some others smelt _fake _due to the artificial chemicals of their perfumes that made the werewolf sick to his stomach since they stung his nose. Remus had to search through every single shop. There were dozens of muggles in the way, and quite a few of the shops were crowded.

He didn't find anything.

There was no sign of Harley there, but he knew it was her. Remus searched Brighton for days while he alternated between apparating back and forth between the seaside city with his shack, and though he was sure he had caught whiffs of her scent, the sheer amount of air pollution and the difference in scents from the muggles made it impossible, but then again Remus was unsurprised. He knew his sense of smell was stronger while he was in werewolf form, but in his human form it comparatively feeble and weak. It was only when he was close to the Full Moon where he transformed or when he was recovering from the transformation Remus' nose in human form was stronger than before but it became weaker and weaker as time passed.

As he tried to search Brighton for Harley, Remus barely had time to eat or drink. His mind was always constantly on the alert for any sign of the girl. But he could never find her, although he did find areas where her scent was strong, though it had faded a bit. While he couldn't find her in person like he had when she had walked past without knowing who he was, though that was hardly her fault he admitted to himself, it told him something important.

Harley really was living in Brighton. But why? What was happening? Were her relatives here, but if that was so why did he see her picking pockets? It made no sense. But the more Remus searched Brighton and the surrounding towns on the off chance she might have gone to one of those instead of staying in Brighton, the more questions he had and the more the question of what her relatives were doing at this point grew louder and louder in his mind.

* * *

Finally, after getting nowhere for three extra days with Harley, Remus decided to visit Privet Drive. He knew precisely where Harley had left, and just having the knowledge of where his deceased best friend's orphaned daughter was residing was bad enough, but over the years Remus had found so many excuses not to go based on what Dumbledore had said and his own fears about what Harley could go through if he bit her or even spent a minute in her company, it had become simpler for him to ignore it.

Now he had no choice. The most logical choice to visit Number 4 was to visit during the daytime, and he did want to speak with the Dursleys to find out what was going on, Remus quickly realised he wanted to do some checking before he got that far at least. He wanted to find out why Harley was here, and why she was picking pockets in Brighton of all place. He wanted to know if the Dursleys had left or not, though that made no sense since it didn't explain why Harley had become a pickpocket. He needed to speak to Petunia, though he was not looking forward to that in the least. Petunia was not a pleasant woman to be around, though from what Dumbledore had said, she was a good stepmother mother to Harley. It was that and several other reasons why he'd kept away from the girl growing up.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, although he knew both Lily and James would feel nothing but contempt for him and his selfishness. Now he was becoming more convinced he had made a terrible mistake. He wanted to confront the Dursleys, find out what was happening. But he couldn't - he had so many questions on his mind, and he wasn't even sure that the Dursleys would answer them. At the same time, he could ask the neighbours more about the matter and get the facts from another point of view before he confronted the Dursleys. In any case, it was always a good idea to get different sides of a matter before making the final decision yourself.

But there was only one way to do that.

He would need to give the search here up for a couple of days, and go to the street in question. He would do some digging; first off, he needed to check if the Dursleys were there or if they had left, and if they had moved down here for some reason then he would come back and simply try to find them, though he was really interested in finding out why Harley had turned to pickpocketing and why she wasn't in school.

At the same time, he could learn more about the family if they were still there. He had only met Petunia a couple of times, and they were fleeting but he hadn't liked the woman.

She was arrogant for no reason. She also didn't seem to like magic, and she disliked her own sister. The less said about Vernon, the better. At the same time, he could also check the wards and find out what Dumbledore used because the old wizard had boasted about them often enough.

He just needed to plan it right. It took Remus a few hours to work out a decent plan to deal with the problem, and by the end of it, he was ready. But he had a little task to do. He had gone to Little Whinging in the twilight hours of the day and with a simple charm to stop the muggles paying attention to him, he had looked in through the windows and found himself looking at the Dursleys. Remus had left and gone back to his shack to rethink some of the plans.

By now he was very worried.

Why was Harley in Brighton, alone, while the Dursleys were here?

What was happening?

He decided to search the house and get some answers before he spoke to anybody.

The first thing he did was to spend a few hours of the early morning on a street corner overlooking Number 4 in Privet Drive. Now he knew the Dursleys still lived here, Remus was convinced something very, very wrong was happening. But at the same time, he was looking up and down the street.

Remus' experiences with muggles were more extensive than most wizards and witches, so he knew about the alien concept of 'suburbia,' but while many witches and wizards were nosy and liked thumbing their noses at other people, the wizarding world had spells and wards designed to increase their privacy.

But while many pureblood witches and wizards looked down their noses at their contemporaries, at least their homes had personality. Honestly, Remus had seen _the Shrieking Shack _have more personality than this place. Indeed Remus had encountered dozens of muggle neighbourhoods where the different muggles didn't _care _about their houses' influence and preferred showing off their individuality.

Why didn't the muggles display ornaments in their front gardens?

Where were the different front gardens, why did they need neatly trimmed lawns that looked as though machines had trimmed the grass and stood each blade of grass upright?

All of the houses looked identical and if it wasn't for the different numbers on the doors and the different model cars standing for their owners to ferry them to work, Remus would never have been able to tell the difference from one house to the next. In fact, he was finding it hard to do so even now.

When he arrived on the street Remus had been carefully studying the fourth house in the street underneath a notice-me-not charm.

And what he found worried him.

There was evidence of magical wards on the property, some pretty powerful ones, but they had collapsed though there was evidence they had been _hanging by threads _for a long time.

Remus frowned as he studied the different wards, or what was left of them.

There were mail-redirect wards on the property which would send mail off to a different location. Remus could understand the logic behind the use of that ward after he gave it some thought; while some mail would be friendly to little Harley, there were many people out there who would love to see her dead.

It wouldn't do to have the girl protected at all times if she could be Portkeyed away, but there were ways of screening that type of thing out and Remus knew that, but the heavy-handed nature of the wards shocked him. Why was Dumbledore going all out like this?

_That explains why Harley never replied to my cards and letters,_ he cursed himself for not coming here, and damn the consequences, and he cursed Dumbledore for his desire to keep Harley isolated.

But the rest of the scan…

Remus couldn't believe it when he found other spells lacing the wards, spells that _shouldn't even be there. _There were spells which, logically, made sense; there was a spell that he recognised from the many hours he had clocked up over the seven years he had spent at Hogwarts for keeping someone in and making sure they didn't run off. There was also one which would prevent muggles from coming in and trying to take Harley.

But why was there traces of a spell similar to a notice-me-not like the one Remus was using to go unnoticed by everyone on the street? Remus had been puzzled when he had studied it; the spell, much like the wards which had collapsed for some reason, but there were enough traces there to tell the werewolf they had been _there_, but he did not know why it was even there _for. _

As he had continued to scan the wards, Remus discovered the Blood Wards. Somehow he was not surprised Dumbledore had used them to protect Harley. When faced with Voldemort's surviving followers, you'd be hard-pressed to find a way to protect anyone.

Blood wards were extremely strong, and although the Ministry banned them, and other forms of Blood magic because of their prejudices, they could not touch the families who used them, though they wouldn't tell anybody about what kind of defences they had since it was suicide But if the Ministry caught wind then someone might raise noise. In a different world, the Ministry might try to bring the families up on charges even if those wards had protected the family.

But they couldn't. The Ministry knew they would lose, especially if they interfered with extremely old families since the others, affiliated or not, would not stand for the interference of any kind.

If they tried, then the families would band together and give the Ministry more trouble than they expected and despite what many people might think about Blood magic, in some ways it was incredibly useful.

And besides, many of the different families never told the Ministry about the Blood wards because of that very reason

Especially now. Fudge might be an idiot and had an overinflated opinion of himself although his policies and his actions said only too loudly and succinctly how much of a fool he was, even he was not stupid enough to do something so stupid.

It made sense Dumbledore would use Blood magic for Harley's protections; with Voldemort's followers out there, it would be impossible for them to get to the girl with the wards on high.

But Remus was uneasy as he continued to scan the wards around Number 4 Privet Drive because it did not take the werewolf long to discover the Blood Wards collapse had been inevitable. There wasn't much of them left, but from what he could discover they'd been in a terrible state for a long time. But there were signs they had received a boost of magical power. Remus had been puzzled about where the wards had gotten the extra magic, and then it occurred to him someone had hooked _Harley _to the wards. The idea of someone doing that to a child was horrific, but what made it even worse was the implication the wards had been on the verge of collapsing for a long time, but Dumbledore had not bothered to look for a root cause or a proper solution.

Remus had gone away even more worried, and for a whole morning, he had thought about what he could do. In the end, he decided to just follow through with the plan, although it would receive a change. A slight tweak there. He was going to break into the house and discover answers for himself. He knew this was the right house, so he hoped there would be answers inside. Remus wasn't worried about the wards; they had fallen apart, but it struck him during his vigil as he waited for the Dursleys to leave so then it would make his job of getting into the house that much easier there might be a magical defence his wand was simply incapable of finding.

With that in mind, he had gone into town and got himself a bottle of water to drink before he transformed it into a Portkey which he would activate and take him back to the shack in case of trouble. With his insurance ready, Remus simply waited for the Dursleys to leave while he was protected by his notice-me-not charm.

An eternity seemed to pass before the Dursleys left the house. The first thing Remus noticed when they finally walked out of the doors was the sheer girth of Vernon Dursley. He had definitely been piling on the pounds, and his moustache set into that reddish-purple face had grown even more ridiculous.

Remus knew his own moustache would make him sound hypocritical, but his own moustache was smaller and it wasn't as pretentious as Vernon's who seemed to have it only because he was trying to be someone important. In truth, Vernon was a weak, pompous man. He was unpleasant at the best of times and was more than happy to provide a charming front.

The next person whom he saw was a boy. Remus wracked his brains to try to remember the boy's name, but he couldn't find it; either Petunia had neglected to tell Lily what it was or if he had simply forgotten it; Remus had no idea which and frankly he didn't care at this point. The boy, although young, was simply fat. And loud. He was yelling at his mother, clearly in the throes of a temper tantrum for sweets or something like that. The yells made Remus close his eyes, wincing while he yearned for the gifted miracle of silence. It was clear Petunia hadn't taught her son the meaning of restraint, but that wasn't his problem. He was here to get answers.

Remus turned his attentions on the boy's mother and he saw that although Petunia hadn't grown that old, she was still the same woman.

The Dursleys were having a conversation. It was whispered and hard to make out for normal ears, but a combination of his werewolf hearing and an eavesdropping spell, and he could hear it.

"I'm almost late, Petunia!" Vernon was saying, whispering harshly to his wife. "Honestly, it shouldn't take so long as to get my breakfast. I slave for this family," Remus rolled his eyes at the man's pomposity, "and this is how the little-."

Remus stiffened as Vernon's voice was getting more and angrier as he came close to ranting and raving, the werewolf feeling there was something about that last remark, but Petunia waved a hand harshly and snapped in the same low tone.

"Don't blame me, Vernon!" Petunia hissed, and from where he was standing Remus could almost see sparks shooting out of Petunia's eyes. "We will just have to get used to it," Petunia went on while she dragged her angry son and followed after her equally angry but more controlled husband while Vernon unlocked the doors of the car. "there's nothing we can do. Don't worry, we'll be alright."

Vernon grunted while his wife clambered into the car and he waddled over to the door and slid inside. Remus could just make out what he was saying before he closed the door; "Yes, oh, when I get my hands on that-!"

Whatever Vernon was about to say was drowned out when he closed the door of his car. Remus watched as the Dursleys had driven away before he started walking towards their home, waving his wand and casting spells over himself as he did so, his mind on what he had just heard although he was trying hard to not think about it since he was starting to get a horrible feeling about what Vernon had been talking about.

He was hoping he was wrong, but he was starting to feel he was right…

The moment he stepped into the house, he was instantly hit with Harley's scent which stopped him from noticing the finer details of the house itself though at this point he didn't care. It was faded a little bit, but it was quite strong in the hall. Remus frowned and followed the scent, stopping when he came across the _cupboard under the stairs. _

Remus' mouth went dry.

No.

NO!

It couldn't be, surely they didn't…

But then he remembered the horror stories told by muggle-borns about their muggle relatives who feared and hated magic, and he knew it was possible.

He just didn't want to believe it and he could feel his grief and guilt surge through him.

He needed to take a deep breath and he opened the door, and he was overpowered with the strong smell of Harley's scent intermingled with blood, urine, vomit, and although long since faded, excrement.

A deep growl started to sound in Remus' throat as he took in the dark space that was barely enough room for a House-elf, never mind a five to six-year-old girl. As he stared into the dark space, taking in the dirty cot with a grimy old blanket that was caked with all kinds of body substances Remus did not want to identify, he felt the urge to tear the house to pieces.

This was worse when he had learnt Sirius had betrayed Lily and James, back then you didn't know whom to trust.

But now he was resisting the urge to murder the Dursleys and kill himself, but he knew he couldn't go that far.

Someone had to find Harley and make sure she was alright, though whether or not she would go with him, Remus didn't want to think about it. He knew he would deserve it if she hated him since he had never cared for her safety in the past.

_What the hell had Dumbledore been __**thinking**__ leaving her here?_

Remus rubbed his face, overwhelmed with the thoughts passing through his mind. It was becoming increasingly obvious to him the old wizard hadn't bothered to properly come and check on Harley's progress. But it was becoming clear to the werewolf Harley had run away, and as he looked into the space under the stairs, he couldn't blame her.

He took another breath and smell the mix of urine, excrement and blood. How long had this been going on?

Remus clenched his fists and he took a few deep breaths while he felt sick to his stomach, bitter self-loathing poisoning his thoughts. _Why did I listen to Dumbledore? He's a schoolteacher, a politician - he's no better than Fudge in some ways. How could I have left Harley here? _

He needed answers, and he knew who was going to give them. He closed the door of the cupboard and he left the house while waving his wand around while placing a small spell on the inside of the house to let him know when the Dursleys would be back. He wanted to confront them all, but first, he needed to get away from here now before he lost control.

* * *

The Dursleys were all at home by around seven pm. Remus was relieved, he had spent the whole day in Brighton trying to find Harley, only to find nothing. As a result, the werewolf's mood was not at its best.

He went straight to Number 4 and kept a hold on the Portkey while he walked to the front door. As he approached and put up a few wards to keep out any muggles from noticing him, he could hear the sounds of the television inside thanks to his sensitive hearing, but he ignored it. He pressed the doorbell and he felt a petty satisfaction in keeping his finger pressed against the bell and let it ring and ring. At the same time, he slipped his wand out of his pocket.

Remus smirked while he heard the sound of loud, angry yelling inside and the sounds of someone charging down the hall, throwing the door open Remus got Vernon Dursley in his face.

"WE'RE NOT INTERESTED!" Dursley yelled in his face.

Remus resisted the urge to wince and he shoved the point of his wand into the fat man's face so then he could see who was in front of him, and he hoped his knowledge of the man's fear and hatred of magic was correct.

"Hello, Vernon," Remus said mildly as though he were meeting an old friend, and wasn't, in fact, pushing his wand into the face of a man who had paled in fear and horror at the wand. "Remember me? We met at the wedding your parents in law forced you to attend."

Vernon's face grew red at the memory. "We don't want your kind here-!"

"You've got me, and there's nothing you can do about it!" All mild geniality had left Remus at that point as he channelled his inner wolf. Vernon seemed to realise he was dealing with someone extremely dangerous because he paled, but Remus caught a strong and particularly disgusting whiff of pee off of the man. "Disgusting. You really are a first-grade coward, aren't you, Vernon? Get inside the house."

Vernon tried to get brave again. "We don't want your kind here-!"

"I'm sorry, but I just said GET INSIDE THE HOUSE!" Remus' voice was more of a growl than a shout, and it drowned out Vernon Dursley very quickly. "We need to talk, and I am going to get answers even if I have to maim your family to get them!"

Remus prodded Vernon into the house with his wand and he slammed the door closed. The fat man backed away, eyes darting left and right in terror. But as he passed the cupboard, Remus felt another flash of rage.

This filthy coward was more than willing to beat an innocent child up, and yet when faced with a fully qualified wizard he was looking left and right like the piece of refuse he was.

Footsteps at the end of the passage sounded and Petunia appeared.

"Vernon, what's going-?" Petunia's eyes widened in horror when they took in the scene in front of them.

"Hello, Petunia," Remus's voice was colder than an icicle which had been sharpened by a whetstone in the arctic. "We met at your sisters' wedding."

The mention of her sister made the woman look even more frightened. "I…I don't know what you're talking about-!" she stuttered, looking at him in terror.

"Oh I think you do," Remus replied, his voice a harsh growl. "Don't play games with me, muggle. Denying you have a sister at all when she died to protect her child is the most stupidest and disgusting thing you could do. Now, go into your living room. We need to talk. And Merlin help you if you don't tell me what I want to know, " he added, hoping invoking the name of the most powerful wizard in magical history would make the two muggles in front of him understand the seriousness of the visit, because if it didn't then they were even more foolish than he'd imagined.

Remus moved the two muggles at wand point into the living room where Dudley was watching television. The boy hadn't even noticed anything out of the ordinary, he was just sitting there. But he looked up and spotted Remus and looked at his parents.

Remus eyed the boy critically, his mind flashing back to the image he'd gotten of Harley from a distance. The comparison between the two was immense.

Harley seemed small for her age and he'd gotten a good look at her physique even from a distance. She was so skinny she was like a splinter, and even Lily hadn't been that skinny when he had known her during their first year at Hogwarts. This kid in comparison was massive. Remus was smart enough to tell this family had probably given their son more food than Harley, and it was probably yet another reason for Harley to run away from here.

"Dudley, get to your room!" Petunia ordered, unknowingly giving Remus the name of her child though the werewolf couldn't care less.

"I want to watch the show!" Dudley whined.

"No! GET UPSTAIRS!" Vernon shouted, eyes flashing fearfully at the werewolf as if they expected him to attack their son.

Vernon needn't have worried.

He didn't care about Dudley Dursley, but if he could get nothing out of the parents then he would go for the cousin.

Dudley got up, sulking. He stomped out of the room and slammed the door shut. Remus shook his head at the melodrama in this pathetic family, and he ignored Dudley's stomps as he walked up the stairs to his room.

In the meantime, Remus was looking around. He hadn't had a good look around earlier; when he had found the cupboard and the state it was in, Remus had not bothered to look around. He grimaced as he took in the flowery wallpapers that gave the place an effeminate appearance, made worse by the ghastly lace curtains. He ignored the photographs of Dudley Dursley as he grew from a small pink beachball of a baby into a fat toddler to the boy he was now.

"What do you want?" Petunia asked, trying to sound confident but her eyes kept darting towards the wand in Remus' hand.

Remus turned around so then both Dursleys were having his complete attention.

"I know Harley Potter ran away from here," Remus replied, not saying a word about how he had come across this knowledge; the last thing he wanted was for these _filthy muggles _to get it into their brains to travel down to the coast and look for the girl if they knew the basics of where to look, that is if they cared as much; Vernon may have blustered and made threats, but whether the fat bastard had the bravery to visit Brighton to look for Harley or not, Remus had no idea, but he had no intention of putting it to the test.

He had made many mistakes with Harley personally, and he had no intention of making it worse even if it was unlikely the Dursleys would know where to look. "I want you to tell me what you did," he added though he had a good idea.

The werewolf noticed them both pale and glance at each other before they turned their attention back to him.

"We don't know anyone by that name," Vernon tried to reply confidently, but his terrified eyes gave him away.

Remus narrowed his eyes, completely surprised by just how stupid these people were. He had just warned them with hints of what he would do if they didn't tell him what he wanted them to say, surely they weren't this stupid?

"Don't insult my intelligence, muggle," Remus said, spitting out the slang term for a non-magical person like it was basilisk poison. "I know she was in this house; I can smell her scent."

He turned to Petunia. "Did Lily never tell you about me, about how I am a werewolf?" he inwardly smirked when he saw the Dursleys step back in terror. He had never liked his curse and what it did with his relationship with other magical people, but at this point, he was going to use it to his advantage.

"It isn't full moon tonight, but I don't need my wolf-form to tear the pair of you to _bits_, especially if I am angry. And I am already angry, don't make it worse for yourself. Now, I won't ask again. What did you do to her?"

Petunia and Vernon exchanged terrified looks with each other, and for a moment Remus was prepared to let them sweat a little but when he realised they weren't going to respond he lost his patience.

"TELL ME!" He yelled, and he levelled his wand at the television and blasted it to pieces. The Dursleys jumped in fright, looking at the spot where the TV used to be, now it was nothing but splinters.

"We swore when we took her in after her no-good parents got blown up there wouldn't be any of the nonsense!" Vernon blustered when Remus speared them with a look.

Remus clenched his free fist as rage burned through his veins while he let out the wolf a little so then his eyes began to flash amber, and a deep growl sounded in his throat. "What do you mean by nonsense? Do you mean magic?" Remus growled before the answer popped into his eyes, and when he saw their expressions, he knew he was right and his self-loathing for not bothering to come to see Harley, his rage towards Dumbledore burnt within him.

"We never wanted the freak!" Vernon went on.

"What?" Remus' eyes were flashing while a myriad of painful curses from his extensive spell repertoire ran through his mind.

"The girl was dangerous. A freak. Weird things kept happening around her. She was a danger to us," the fat muggle went on stupidly while Petunia showed that she at least had some degree of intelligence and was trying to shut her husband up. But it wasn't working. "We're normal people. We don't want or need you around. She was nothing but a burden-."

"CRUCIO!" Remus yelled and Vernon Dursley collapsed to the ground, screaming and writhing in agony.

"VERNON!" Petunia yelled, but Remus lifted the curse and walked off for a moment to put some distance between himself and them, trying to stop the self-hatred he was feeling. He had learnt the unspeakable curses a long time ago, but he had never used them like this. In his mind, it was better to know the dark arts so you could defend yourself rather than being ignorant and helpless.

"Don't ever insult Harley Potter again, you filthy, disgusting muggle animal!" Remus growled at the muggle on the floor, inwardly wondering about his word use. He had never bought into the pureblood supremacy garbage, but something about this family made him think muggles were disgusting.

"You say you swore there wouldn't be 'nonsense,' as you called it, what did you do mean?" he went on.

"We were going to stop her from going to that…that school!"

Remus chuckled darkly although he was unnerved by the Dursleys plan. "Really, and how would you do that, by beating her up? I can smell her _blood from where I'm standing! _Why go that far? What's the matter Vernon, you don't feel like a _man_ so you need to go as far as beating a child before you do?"

"I was trying to stamp the freak stuff out of her-!" Vernon argued, but Remus grabbed him by the throat and picked him up without much trouble and slammed him into the wall, ignoring Petunia's cries.

"You stupid muggle. You cannot beat magic out of someone. It doesn't work. Magic is not something you can just pummel out of someone. It's a part of a witch or wizard's soul, and there's nothing you can do about that. Oh," Remus remembered something Vernon had said, "what makes you think Harley wouldn't go to Hogwarts? Her name has been on the roster for students to attend since she was born. And if you think the wizarding world is going to let you, a muggle, dictate the life of the last Potter, the only person to survive _the killing curse _after Lord Voldemort tried to murder her, then you are not going to like the results. You think I'm bad?" he asked rhetorically. "If you tried to keep Harley here, the Ministry of Magic would get involved. You would be put on trial, under our laws, and I can tell you, the magical world truly doesn't care about muggle laws. We're above you in every way, and we would never tolerate you holding Harley here, especially considering her hero status in the magical world."

Remus chuckled when he saw the two muggles looking at each other in surprise, though he doubted it would make any difference in the long term.

He had to get out of here.

Now.

He was disgusted with himself for losing control like that, but what he wanted to do was just leave. Remus felt he had gotten the answers he wanted, but he wanted to know a lot more.

"When did she run away? How did she run away?"

When they didn't answer he lifted his wand.

* * *

Remus walked out of the Dursley house an hour later, his mind churning. Harley had escaped from the Dursleys when she had been staying at Arabella Figg's place - what the squid was doing here, Remus had no idea but he had no desire to find out since the woman had not done a good job with looking after Harley.

He closed his eyes and he dug his hands into the pocket where his portkey was kept. He would need to think a little bit about this, and what he planned to do.

Remus had no intention of giving up on Harley, although he had no desire for her to come back here. Thinking of how he'd acted inside the Dursley's homemade Remus disgusted with himself because they brought out a side he had never felt before. But beating up a child simply so then they could _rip out her magic…_

It was disgusting, but what made it worse was that Dumbledore must have known what the Dursleys were doing, but he did nothing…Remus Lupin was really needing to rethink his opinions of the Headmaster, but he would have time to think of that. He had to go and think, he would go back to his shack and spend time thinking about what he knew now before he went after Harley.

But he wouldn't know in a few months he would come close to finding her, only to discover she was long gone.


	4. Chapter 4 Family Lost

I am so sorry it's taken me so long to update. Anyway, with Christmas so close, I'm hoping to provide more updates.

Please let me know what you think.

* * *

Harley Potter - The Black Cat.

No-one would have expected a pickpocket to have enough cash to have pizza.

But this group did.

Harley smiled as she dived in on the pizza Vanessa had bought her from Pizza Hut, the skin on the inside of her mouth almost burnt when it touched the hot dough covered in hot tomato sauce covered with melted cheese, pepperoni, onion, and pepper.

"Hey, watch it, Harl," Vanessa warned, but she smirked when she saw how her adoptive sister was enjoying the meal, and she turned to the others. Her baby sister Colleen was eating a small but still large enough pizza to satisfy her, covered with plain cheese and pepperoni, while Liam was just eating a vegetable covered pizza with no meat on it. Vanessa herself was eating a chicken pizza with added vegetables, sipping from the bottle of water she'd bought for herself along with others for her siblings.

"I can't help it, 'essa," Harley said between bites, grinning at her. "I love pizza. You know that."

Vanessa snorted but she grinned back. "Still don't eat with your mouthful."

Harley rolled her eyes good-naturedly at the motherly worry Vanessa spoke with. She caught Liam catching his big sister's eye, and she thought she saw Liam's eyes move in the direction of Colleen and Harley.

"That reminds me," Vanessa paused when she had to swallow and she drank some water to wash down the food, "I've got something to speak to you about after dinner, but for the time being enjoy yourselves. We have pudding don't forget."

Harley exchanged an excited look with Colleen. It was rare to eat anything for pudding that wasn't a piece of fruit, or pieces since they always went out of their way to make sure there were more apples, mangos, grapes, or pears. But tonight was a rare treat, one that Vanessa had been saving up for for a long time. Ice cream. They usually had to be careful with money since they usually spent the money on fresh clothes, food and water or anything else to drink, and Vanessa also bought books for them all to read so then they wouldn't be completely illiterate.

Harley was grateful for that, and because she didn't have to hide her smarts as she had with the Dursleys, she was able to read to her hearts content and she was already a quarter of the way through the works of Shakespeare whereas Colleen was reading the Worst Witch stories with her big sister's help, and Liam was reading Treasure Island.

After they had finished eating their pizzas, they left for the living room. It wasn't really a living room, at least when compared to the one Harley had known at Privet Drive. This was just a more comfortable room with a number of couches which looked like they had seen better times in happier places and they smelt musty, overused. Vanessa placed the ice cream on a nearby table to let it thaw out a little bit while Liam picked out the plastic bowls they were going to eat the pudding out of, and dropped a spoon in each one.

"Okay, Vanessa, what is this big announcement?" Harley asked, deciding just to get it over and done with.

Vanessa leaned forward, her eyes drawing in her audience. "We're going to stop picking pockets."

"What?" Colleen asked, looking at her in confusion.

"Why, what's brought this on?" Harley asked although she was a little annoyed she hadn't realised this was going on.

Vanessa rubbed her hands. "We have been picking pockets left, right and centre for a long time now, Harley. The public and the police have both noticed. Surely you've noticed the number of police patrols near the beaches?"

Harley frowned as she cast her mind back to the last time she had picked someone's pocket near the beach, and she recalled the number of police patrols pacing up and down the esplanade. "Yeah," she replied.

"But what are we going to do? I mean, we've been like picking pockets forever and ever?" Little Colleen asked.

"Burglary," Liam answered. "We're going to become burglars."

Harley blinked her surprise. In truth she hadn't really expected this little twist, although looking back she supposed she should have done, since she had noticed and told Vanessa and Liam about the increased police patrols, but both had been cagey about it all, and Harley had thought the pair of them would think of something, maybe lie low for a bit, or move to somewhere else, so she hadn't expected this.

Vanessa reached into her pocket. "I spoke to one of our fences," she was saying as she made a face while she attempted to look for something in her pockets before her face brightened, "and….he got us these," she said with a pause for dramatic effect while she laid whatever it was in her pockets which she then placed on the table in front of them.

Harley leaned forward, a crinkle in her forehead as she stared in confusion at what was on the table. "Keys?" she asked in surprise.

"Not just any type of key," Liam picked one up for a moment and then put down again.

Harley looked again, and she noticed he was right. These keys were different, there was something odd about their teeth, but otherwise, they didn't look too dissimilar from other keys.

Colleen asked the question on her mind, although the little girl didn't use the exact wording. "What's so fab about these keys, V'essa?" she asked with her own nickname for her big sister.

"These are bump keys. You place them inside the keyholes, slip them out a bit, and then bash the key with a hammer and the door is open," Vanessa replied.

Colleen jumped up. "Oh, magic!"

Vanessa chuckled, although she didn't know what the effect that word had on Harley was, who remembered all the times it had been mentioned in the Dursley's home, and it resulted in nothing but pain. After only just managing to suppress the urge to shudder at the word, Harley leaned forwards and picked one of the keys up, studying the different teeth.

"Is this why you have been going out for a while?" she asked the older girl curiously.

Vanessa had been heading out into Brighton more and more frequently leaving Colleen and Harley with Liam, and she wouldn't get back for several hours. Harley and Colleen had both made a few wild guesses about what Vanessa was up to, but now it looked like their guesses were wrong. Colleen had suggested Vanessa had met a boy or something like that. Harley had wondered if Vanessa had found someone willing to give her a job despite her lack of qualifications.

Vanessa nodded. "Yeah," she replied.

"How did you get them?"

"I went to one of our fences like I told you. He needed some time to get them, and I needed to pay him. The good thing is we have three sets of bump keys, and he taught me how to use them. At the same time, I got my hands on a crowbar, and a set of keys in case we come to a lock which doesn't use the same design."

Harley thought that sounded reasonable. "When do we start?" she asked, although she had guessed the answer.

"Tomorrow morning. I've found a decent door for us to practice on. We're going to practice for the best part of the week, and as long as we stretch our budget, we should be fine until we begin committing a few burglaries."

"Have you already found a place for us to start with?" Liam asked.

"Yeah. I didn't just go to see our fence. I went out of Brighton on buses to see what's out there, and where we can break into. I've found a few houses in Rottingdean and Saltdean."

Harley frowned. Rottingdean and Saltdean were only a few miles out of Brighton and easy to get to if you used either a bus or a car, but if they relied on public transport then there would be problems. "If we go there we won't be able to get too much without being noticed, and that's going to be tough. We're going to have to be selective with what we steal."

"I know," Vanessa replied. "And we're going to have to do it on the weekends since most kids our ages are either in school or in nursery school," she added toking at her younger sister before she turned her attention back to Liam and Harley. "Or we just travel to the neighbourhoods very early in the morning and wait until they leave for work or for school. Are you guys okay with this?"

Harley nodded.

"We have had a few near misses, and it is getting harder and harder for us to get close to anyone," Liam pointed out, "of course we're okay with it."

Vanessa chuckled.

"V'essa, ice cream!" Colleen cheered.

Vanessa laughed. "Alright, I'll dish it out. Be patient."

XXX

The next few days of practicing went so well Vanessa quickly changed her mind about how long it would be before they started committing burglaries. At first, they made a few elementary mistakes, like scratching the lock, but they quickly worked their way around that, and they each put in a few hours each of practice in order to get everything right. Liam and Vanessa were the only ones to really need to handle the crowbar because of their age, but Harley had still insisted she learn how to use it as well, although there was nothing to it.

While they were practicing Liam was once again left in charge of his younger sisters and was told to continue their lessons with breaking and entering using the bump keys while they continued to keep up with their old lessons, like how to be quick and how to be choosy with their pickings. Vanessa and Liam both knew Harley had had a point about being very careful about what they could take, and while Vanessa and Liam were both older, and stronger than either Colleen or Harley, they knew they didn't have the means of carting a large TV across Saltdean and into Brighton without the use of a car or a bus.

Harley had a good idea where Vanessa had gone, and why. But she said nothing and instead comforted and encouraged little Colleen. The little girl was excited about the burglary, she thought it was the start of some incredible adventure although she had yet to truly understand what it could mean. Colleen, despite knowing how risky pickpocketing was, saw it as just one great big game whereas Harley didn't, but the slightly older girl never pointed it out to the small child. In any case, when she was older she might want to continue being a thief.

Harley herself was uncertain about what her own future held, but as long as she was with this group of siblings and they saw her as an adoptive sister, she would follow them until the end of time itself.

The first burglary took place only four days after Vanessa had made the announcement in the change in how they stole. She started by waking them up very early in the morning.

Harley whined from being shaken awake by her big sister. "Vanessa," she yawned, taking one look outside and shivered, groaning when she saw how dark it was outside. "It's too _early…"_

Vanessa looked exhausted herself but she continued to shake Harley while Liam roused a sleepy Colleen, who was even more unhappy about being woken up. "Come on, Harley. We need to get going. We've got a really busy morning."

"I hate _busy mornings," _Colleen moaned melodramatically, but soon she and Harley were both up and they were treated to a rather basic breakfast before they wrapped themselves up warmly and they trudged towards the bus.

Harley stepped onto the bus and let Vanessa handle the bus driver, and she looked at the older woman sitting in the driver's seat, who appeared to be even more tired than they were. She felt some pity for the bus driver, who didn't seem to be really awake and aware yet to notice the people she was issuing tickets to were kids. She didn't seem to be interested in asking why they didn't seem to be in school uniforms either, but Harley knew once they finished with the burglary they could find themselves faced with someone who would ask those questions.

She pushed that out of her mind when the bus started. They went upstairs like they normally did since Vanessa loved pointing things out to Colleen, who loved being taller than everyone else when she was sitting upstairs. Harley sat just behind the older and younger girls, watching them intently. Although they called her their adoptive sister and she had found a true friend in each of them, Harley had always felt like a bit of an outsider, and truthfully she doubted if it would ever really change. She had always been an outsider. At Little Whinging she had been an outsider because Petunia had spread all of those filthy lies about her, aided by her husband and son. At school Dudley had gone out of his way to make sure no-one befriended her, encouraged by his parents, who claimed _freaks did not have friends _and she was mentally and physically abused.

They got off of the bus in Saltdean, although they got off at the stop near the Tye. Harley had never really been on Telscombe Tye, it was just essentially a large field although the farmer didn't grow anything here. People just used it to walk, exercise their dogs, or jog. The gang of kids walked over the Tye a short way before they came to an opening.

"Vanessa, why are we going down here?" Liam asked, voicing the question on all of their minds.

"You'll see."

Harley rolled her eyes at the melodrama, and she fought down her annoyance Vanessa was about to surprise them. She hated surprises ever since one day Vernon had told her she had a birthday treat, getting her all worked up…only to be belted while Petunia and Dudley watched. She had learnt the easy way since then not to expect too much from surprises.

Okay, she knew it was going tomb a good one; Vanessa wasn't an animal like Vernon, but she really hoped this was going to be a good surprise.

They walked down a crude flight of steps slowly and found themselves in a street. Vanessa led them to a house and pointed. "That's what we're going to burgle today," she whispered in case anyone was awake; it might be dark but that didn't mean someone was out here.

"This?" Liam's voice was impressed. Harley knew how he felt.

The top of the house level with the street was just the garage, but Vanessa pointed out something, a flight of stairs leading down. There was just enough light for them to see a large house surrounded by trees. It was perfect; no-one to look in on what was going on, and the house was sufficiently large enough for them to get in and burgle.

"Wow!" Harley whistled impressed.

"When are we going in?" Colleen asked, but her voice was loud enough to carry down the hill. Harley and Liam either winced or looked around themselves, worried in case the child's voice would wake someone up.

"Shhh!" Vanessa hissed.

"Sorry," Colleen whispered sheepishly.

"We'll get in there as soon as they've gone," Vanessa checked her watch. "We have at least two hours. We're going to have to go down these steps, looking on them undercover, and wait."

"Two hours?" Harley repeated wearily.

"I know, it's not perfect. But I wanted us to get here quickly so then we could get here without being seen."

"It's going to be hard getting out of here without being seen," Liam pointed out, "there's only one stairway and if anyone comes down we're going to have a hard time explaining ourselves."

"True," Vanessa admitted softly, "but we're going to have to risk it. And besides, I think this is the perfect place for us to start since we will have a perfect cover and a way of getting out of Saltdean."

"I thought we were going to be going to other houses?" Harley commented.

"We are, but I'm just thinking about what could go wrong. And I don't see any reason why we can't burgle houses along this street," Vanessa said.

_Is she making all of this up as we go along? It seems that way given how she seems to be coming up with one plan only to contradict it the next second, _Harley thought to herself, but she shrugged her shoulders.

"Okay, 'essa. It's time to stop talking and get on with it," Liam said.

The stairs leading down were steep, and Colleen needed extra help climbing down them though she managed it with her big sister and big brother to help her. Harley also helped, but she could see the worry on the other's faces, especially Vanessa. The older girl had clearly not expected this, and Harley hoped it didn't cause problems for them all in the future. When they finally managed to get to the bottom of the stairs, Harley took note of the house. It was dark thanks to the early morning, but she guessed the walls of the house were coloured a bright colour for her to get these details.

They waited for an hour and a half thanks to Vanessa's watch, and they saw for themselves the lights come on. They waited for the couple to prepare breakfast and go through their morning routine before they went off to work.

Colleen stood up, brushing herself off, whimpering at the cramp in her foot which she'd gotten for the last hour. "Come on," she said in her bubbly voice, "they've gone."

The quartet nodded and they got to work. Getting into the house was easy thanks to the bump keys. Colleen squealed as they gathered the couple's things which they would later sell, but her big sister shushed her.

Vanessa made sure the burglary only took twenty minutes and they packed CDs, money, jewellery, anything which looked like they were worth much to be worth stealing into bags the elder siblings had brought with them.

Once they had left the house, Vanessa led them down the street. Harley shivered a little as her eyes flickered over to the row of houses; if there was one thing she loved the most about Brighton, it was how the houses and flats looked different from the cookie-cutter houses she was familiar with in Surrey, but while the houses here had an individuality to them which Harley found refreshing from the boring norm of Little Whinging, she couldn't help but feel she was being watched.

"This is another one," Vanessa pointed at a little house further down with no car out in the road. Harley studied the property, seeing a yellow-walled house, a bungalow in front of her.

"Let's get on with it," Liam said, and they went inside the house. Burgling this house was just as easy as the other house. But because of the smaller size, they had an easier time of it. Vanessa made sure this house was burgled very quickly before they left.

Harley expected Vanessa to lead them around Saltdean, and she did. She led them to about five other houses in different places that she had clearly taken a lot of effort just to explore. But as they went along, and their bags became slightly heavier, Harley wondered just how many more places they could break into before Vanessa called it a day.

Finally, after house number 6, Vanessa decided they'd made a good enough haul. Harley was relieved when they approached a bus stop and they headed back into Brighton, although she felt conscious of the fact they were carting stolen goods on the bus all the way to Brighton again and she wondered how long it would take before someone cottoned on to what they were doing.

One thing that worried Harley the most was they were dragging their stolen gear all the way back to their place. Another thing that worried her the most was she was sure a few people had noticed them, and she wondered how long it would be before they were noticed. She brought this worry up with Vanessa and Liam, but they seemed nonchalant about it, much to the girl's frustration.

XXX

Harley barely noticed the tall man who looked like he could do with a few square meals and a change of clothes as she walked back to the abandoned shop they had been using as a place to live. She slipped through the crowd with practiced ease, although she took note of where everyone was as they pressed close against her.

She managed to get ahead of the crowd, using her knowledge of the side streets to slice off some of her journey back to the shop.

It had been two weeks since the burglaries in Saltdean and already the newspapers had described the break-ins, however, her worries about there being witnesses spotting four kids of differing ages carrying bags around from each site had proven to be wrong, much to her relief.

But she had also noticed the clear relief on Liam and Vanessa's faces, and she had worked out they had been worried themselves, much to her annoyance given their earlier attitudes.

The group had committed a few other burglaries in the past week, of course; and as they had gone along, each of the gang had gained experience with burglary. They had learnt very quickly to be very quick with the burglaries they committed. They had also worked out the best places to burgle were those where no-one could look in, so if they burgled a house with a front garden which was open, then others on the street could see what they were doing, and call the police. It had nearly happened twice before the group had worked out what they were doing wrong, so Vanessa and the others were on the lookout for houses surrounded by trees, or just dense foliage like the first house they had burgled in Saltdean.

One thing that frustrated the older members of the gang was that the fence Vanessa had arranged, was very picky about what he took from the proceeds and as a result it was just getting harder and harder to give him stuff. The fence was constantly telling Vanessa and Liam who were the only ones to take the stuff to him to bring more, or find stuff for him to sell. It was obvious the guy was ripping them off, although they didn't know why since they took so much to him.

But he was just never satisfied. It made little sense to Harley, especially since he had been so amiable, although she had only Vanessa's word for that, to getting them the bump keys, except that he was greedy. He wanted more from them, and they certainly had a lot of evidence to support that theory given how he was making them go out constantly to steal more and more stuff, only he was barely satisfied with any of it, even though there was more than enough stuff for him to take.

Well, now their little home was getting so full of stuff Harley had no doubt they would have

Harley thought he was just greedy. Liam thought he was just a dickhead. Colleen just thought he was just a meanie. But Harley had a feeling, and she wasn't sure if she was the only one who thought this, but it seemed to her like the fence was determined to make them all work for him. Well, it seemed to be working, but the only problem was why he was making them steal so much and yet not doing anything with any of it?

The stuff…

Harley was worried. None of the group was ignorant of the fact their abandoned shop was not invisible to anyone. People passed it every day, and it wouldn't be a problem for some other kids or even teenagers to break into the place on a dare, and they would likely find their hideout, and everything the gang had stolen for the last few weeks.

In the past, it wasn't much of a problem since homeless kids were used to living in abandoned houses and shops; in their case, their pickpocketing made it simple just to avoid making the place look like an indoor tip.

But now….They had stolen so many things from different houses, they'd had to separate a good half of the house just for their living space while giving the other half over to their stuff.

Harley wondered just how long Vanessa was going to let this fence dictate them like this. The older girl was patient, but she had her limits like everybody else. In any case, she was positive Vanessa and Liam were already trying to find another fence, one who was hopefully much better and fairer than the one they had to put up with. Harley had no idea if that was happening, but she had a feeling it was. Vanessa and Liam didn't like their current living arrangements anymore than Harley or Colleen did themselves, but the older kids hadn't said anything to either of them yet about what was happening about the matter.

Harley shook her head. She would press the matter when dinner came. She had no idea what Vanessa and Liam had in mind tonight, but hopefully they would be so busy eating and making sure their little sister got more than enough to eat herself they would be in the mood to talk.

She was just turning down the street when the sight that caught her eyes made them widen in horror.

There were two police cars and an ambulance in front of the abandoned shop she and the rest of the gang had been using to live in and store everything they had burgled over the last few weeks.

"NO!" Harley's heart leapt in her chest when she saw and heard Colleen's panicked cry.

The little girl was struggling in the hands of a paramedic who was taking the child over to the ambulance.

"Leave my sister alone!" Harley heard Vanessa shout, but whether it did any good…Harley could not tell. She watched from her vantage point as the older girl was being dragged out although she was struggling due to her panic for what was happening to her little sister.

"Colleen!"

"Vanessa!" Harley's heart was breaking as she watched as the younger girl was holding out her hand for her big sister but they were both bundled into the ambulance, but Harley couldn't tell what was happening inside the ambulance. Not from this distance. Liam came out next. He was held by two paramedics, and he was struggling every step of the way.

Harley wanted to rush towards them, to help them, but she didn't dare move. She knew she couldn't head over there and help as much as it pained her.

Her heart sank even more as she watched the police come out with the proceeds from their earlier burglaries. Harley bit her lip and watched as the kids were placed in the ambulance, but Liam tried to get out, or at least to push Colleen away so she could get away, but they were stopped and pushed back in and the doors were closed.

The ambulance drove away, and Harley watched in horror as the only family she'd had, the only people who'd ever accepted her….just left.


	5. Chapter 5 Foster Care

I don't own Harry Potter.

Merry Christmas.

* * *

Harley Potter the Black Cat.

_They're gone. Liam, Colleen, and Vanessa…all of them gone, _Harley thought dejectedly as she walked through the streets of Brighton. She had just witnessed her friends, who were the closest thing to family that she'd ever had in her life since the family she'd been left with so mysteriously were monsters, be taken from her.

A part of Harley wanted to go back. She wanted to see if there were any police officers still there at the hideout - with the amount of stuff she and the others had pinched here and there during their burgeoning burglary careers and their pickpocketing days, there were bound to be a few coppers still there investigating and bagging everything up so then it would eventually be returned to the rightful owners - and she could tell them she was part of the gang, that she lived on the streets, and that she wanted to be put into care herself.

But she didn't.

She couldn't - even if the police and social services put her with Vanessa, Liam and Colleen in the same home, which there was no guarantee they'd do, there was the slim chance someone would do their homework, and realise who she was. If that happened then she would be back among the Dursleys and if that happened then she would almost certainly never survive.

Vanessa and the others had told her just what their lives were like, which was comparable to her own life before she had found them on the streets. Liam and his elder sister had both been terrified of going back to their old lives because social services were incredibly stupid and thoughtless much of the time, and their worries had made the idea of entering the care system repugnant to Harley.

There was no doubt in her mind the Dursleys would kill her if she ever appeared in their doorway ever again. She knew the workload would have driven Petunia crazy by now since she no longer had an unpaid slave to do the cooking, the washing, the cleaning, the gardening, and all the other things the Dursleys heaped on her shoulders. Vernon wouldn't have a convenient punching bag to vent his frustrations, and Dudley wouldn't have someone to bully.

Social services had never done anything for Harley except cause her more pain and grief. The last thing she wanted to do was give herself up and let herself be sent back to Privet Drive.

Harley pulled her scarf up tighter and continued walking slowly without any clear destination in mind. She had nowhere else to go except to one of the places Vanessa and Liam and taken her and Coleen, which was a long way off especially since she needed to walk the streets by herself but that meant nothing to her. The walk would do her the world of good, and it did because by the time she reached the new hideout which was yet another abandoned building, this time an old house - she would need to find other places like this in the future - she had a much better idea of what she was going to do next.

She would continue being a burglar only this time she wasn't going to make the mistake of relying solely on collecting bits and pieces. She would be concentrating on the cash only; jewellery and other things in houses might offer profits of high returns, but Harley knew how frustrated Vanessa and Liam had become since their fence hadn't given them a break and had been incredibly greedy and just wanted more and more. The result - the police had come and had a field day.

Harley had no intention of letting that happen again. She didn't want to cart around tons of stuff around the neighbourhood; not only did it run the risk of getting her caught out like the others, now she was on her own she didn't have enough time to visit houses and break into them and finding large amounts of stuff to sell for a profit. In any case, she didn't plan on trusting another fence in case they were as greedy as the one Liam and Vanessa had both made the mistake of trusting.

No. Cash was easier. Yeah, she would probably go for jewellery, especially if she learnt more about whoever could buy and shift it, but she would wait for a bit.

As she walked slowly through the abandoned house to check on just how stable the structure was and where she could find a place to sleep, to eat, and to essentially live, Harley also took the time to reflect on some of her other choices and options. She definitely felt being a thief was the best option she had currently, but she also felt it was in her best interests if she just gathered enough cash to leave Brighton and go somewhere else. But it didn't take Harley long to realise if she did that she would be back in square one. She would still need to find a place to live and stay.

_Maybe I should go into care, _she thought to herself as she found herself lost for options. _I dunno if they would take me back to the Dursleys, but if I can be with the others again then great. _

The big problem with being on the streets anywhere, Harley pondered, was if you move from one place to another, doing what you can in order to survive, there aren't that many options or resources available to you…

After she had set up a temporary home for herself, Harley rubbed her belly. She was quite hungry and as she checked her pockets, she sighed with relief when she pulled out a pair of twenty-pound notes. She shoved one of them into her pocket and kept the other one out and prepared to leave the little hideout while looking down at the corner which was going to be serving as her bed for a while before she went out. As she walked out of her new abode, Harley shivered a little and pulled her coat up. It was turning chilly, but as she walked through the streets and it became colder and colder, Harley wondered just how cold it was going to get.

XXX

Harley pulled her blanket closer to her frozen body in an attempt to keep out the chills, but her hands shook and her teeth chattered in her mouth so loud it was the only sound she could hear.

The weather had become so cold it was unbearable and without anything, in the abandoned building she could use to keep herself warm her best option had been to huddle up in a corner and wrap her coat and blanket up around herself and hope her body heat became enough to keep out the chills. But it hadn't worked.

Harley had been worried about the growing cold for the last few days, but it was only now that the weather had turned so bad she couldn't help but wonder how long she had left; the library in Little Whinging had been full of decent books containing information about a variety of topics, but it had not occurred to Harley she should also be focusing on books about the cold and what the effects were on human health. Harley looked around the room in the abandoned building she had taken as a home and sighed, but her teeth chattered even more.

She accepted the truth.

There was no way she could get out of this without help. Yeah, she knew she could stay in this room with the windows gone with just a few pieces of the window frame left which let in the cold air into the room, but she had no idea what could happen to her if that happened. Harley had felt cold weather before of course, but never anything like what she was currently feeling.

The truth was…she was so cold that she had little doubt in her mind she would need to put herself into care.

Harley sighed, and she stood up slowly, shivering as the cold air hit her harder while she felt the cramp in her legs and feet. She winced and cried out as the painful cramp hit her.

"Ow!" her teeth chattered as she tried to massage her legs, but her hands and feet were so cold it was virtually impossible for her to massage the cramp out of her feet. Harley eventually gave up and she stood up and walked slowly to the door while she bundled up her blanket, and wrapped it around her body before she left the abandoned building and into the streets.

It was quite icy outside, and since she was so cold and she was wrapped in a blanket Harley had trouble walking so it seemed to take her forever to reach the police station.

As she stood outside the police station, already cursing the architects who'd designed the stupid building and the builders who'd built the place for giving it steps before she noticed the ramp for those who would have trouble walking and moving around, Harley hesitated while she shivered. While she knew there were so many things that could go wrong - the worst possibility was the police or social services would find out who she was and where she was from, and them send her back to Little Whinging.

But on the other hand…

Harley knew she would need to give the police a totally different name, but she had no idea if they would believe her.

"Are you okay, sweetheart?"

Harley gasped and she swung around, craning her neck upwards at the sound of the voice. Towering over her, looking down at her with an expression Harley had never seen before on the face of anybody, so she couldn't really define it, was a police officer complete with a fluorescent yellow-green jacket.

"Er y-yeah," Harley cursed her chattering teeth once more. "I'm h-homeless. M-my parents d-died years a-ago, and I am c-cold."

The policewoman gasped and she immediately bent down. "It's okay, sweetie," she whispered while looking at Harley again with an expression again the girl couldn't identify. "It'll be okay."

A part of Harley optimistically believed her. But the other part was uncertain.

XXX

Two years later.

XXX

Harley was sitting in her room doing her homework for school. As she lifted her head she smiled slightly as she took in the decoration of her bedroom. The room wasn't tailored to her specific likes or dislikes - the colour scheme was pink rather than purple which was her favourite colour, but it sufficed and it had the essentials which were it had a bed, wardrobe, and a desk with a chair. There was also a TV and a few videos, but since Harley wasn't interested in using her pocket money - something she had never anticipated getting considering the Dursleys had never given her money for anything and did the complete opposite and took whatever money she earned from the jobs they had her do around the neighbourhood - she never really invested the time to create a collection although the same couldn't be said with the books.

As she worked on the math questions - Harley had always been good at maths, but since she had always read a few advanced mathematics books because she was interested in the topic, the questions were easy enough to answer - Harley had time to think.

It was so hard to believe two years had passed by, and yet so far they had been the best two years of her life. Ever since she had met that nice police officer who had gotten her checked out at the local hospital to make sure she hadn't suffered any ill-effects from being out in the cold for such a long period of time, and then she was whisked away to a children's home.

Unfortunately, it wasn't the one where she was sure Colleen, Vanessa, and Liam had been sent to, but she was okay with that. She was used to being on her own, and while some of the other kids had been nice to her, Harley had kept her distance from them. She remembered clearly the last time someone had been friendly with her, and how it had turned out in the end. She wasn't going to let it happen again. But in time she had done her best to build small temporary bridges here and there. Granted, she wasn't friends with anyone and preferred being on her own, but she was willing to hang out with the other kids and go out with them.

Harley frowned a little bit as she remembered the long weeks she had spent waiting for the social workers or the police working out who she was, and then they would send her back to the Dursleys and brush their hands off of her and not think about the consequences.

But it never happened, thank god.

And yet, at the same time, Harley worried that she might have exchanged one hell with another.

While she had been living on the streets, she had been free; granted, it had been a tough life, never knowing how and where she was going to get her next meal, and never knowing how long you could stay in one spot before you were either turfed out by the police, or by somebody else in the same mess you were.

But she had been free.

She had learnt a great deal, about how to steal, how to fight, and how to see the world differently from how ordinary people saw the world.

Nothing would ever take that from her.

And yet, life had become so harsh Harley had simply given up, and she had not regretted it. It had been freezing cold, and she had felt as if she could very well die. She was not going to just die simply because she was full of stubborn pride. In any case, Harley had since studied up on what could have happened had she stayed out for long.

She could have frozen to death, died of hypothermia.

Harley didn't want to die. She was a young girl. There was still much she wanted to see, much she wanted to do with her own life, and she wanted the opportunity to reach that stage.

She wanted to travel to other countries. She wanted to see what was beyond Britain, especially after being confined to Little Whinging.

As she went through her math homework, Harley knew one thing. While she had only just survived on the streets of Brighton and ended up nearly freezing to death out there, she was glad she had a safety net now although she still planned on committing burglaries.

Granted, she had been waiting for the right opportunities to begin work again, but Harley had already found a decent house. Best of all, it was on the road to school.

A knock came from the door. Harley lifted her head. "Yeah?" she called.

The door opened and one of the kids stood there. "Hi, do you wanna play with us?" the girl, Anita, asked. She was a nice girl. A bit timid, but she was nice and sweet.

Harley smiled, reminded of little Coleen. Her smile faded a little as she remembered what had happened to her friend, and she hoped the little girl was still with her siblings although she still wasn't entirely sure about the system in place where it came to siblings in care. "Sure thing," she replied and she put down her books and she left her bedroom while all the time hoping none of these kids got her in the same moods whenever Dudley and his friends had bullied her, and those strange things had happened around her.

But she hadn't found it in her heart to say no to Colleen. In any case, it would do well to be friendly to the kids in this place, and she hoped whatever those strange things were, it didn't happen here.

The last thing she wanted was to be labelled a freak, not here.

XXX

Over the next two weeks, Harley observed the house although she didn't really have a lot of time except for when it was the weekend to really spend some time examining the property. It wouldn't be until the end of the second week when she had really sorted through her plans that Harley would feel ready. One night, Harley sneaked out of her bedroom and she was thankful she had managed to get her hands on a spare key from the office of the children's home and she managed to get out of the house. She walked the mile towards the house and she saw that despite the lateness of the hour, a light was on in one of the rooms downstairs.

Harley crept towards it, hoping there weren't any motion-sensitive lights nearby. Luckily for her, there were none, and she looked through the open gap in the curtain. She saw a man sitting on a sofa, reading a newspaper while watching television if the bright lights were any indication. But Harley was frustrated because once more she could not see anybody else inside the house. And she had been looking for a while. Harley recognised the man with his dark hair; she had seen him often enough leaving his home, wearing jogging gear. Every morning he went jogging and while she didn't know for sure just how far he jogged, Harley knew regardless it would be a cinch to break in and burgle the house. With that in mind, Harley walked over to the front door, wincing in annoyance and worry when a security light came on. But nothing happened. No-one came to the door. Still, the light gave her enough time to examine the lock.

Harley smiled and left.

The next morning, Harley walked towards the house on the way to school. She arrived at the house, just in time to see the owner jog out into the street without once noticing the small girl wearing a school uniform. Harley took advantage of that, and she carefully and calmly walked to the front door after she peeked in through the windows. She saw no-one.

Harley slipped a bump key into the lock and after giving the key a rap, she was inside the house. Cautiously she stepped inside the house and she silently closed the door and walked through the house looking for any sign of an animal or a person. Harley found what looked like an office, and she stepped inside and after donning a pair of latex gloves, she began going through the drawers. She found a small amount of cash, but that was it. She was about to go upstairs when something happened that horrified her.

"Have you gone out yet?!" Harley almost jumped in fright when she heard the voice coming from upstairs. She quickly leapt over to the door and moved it so then she could see through the gap.

Her blood went cold when she saw a woman through the gap with a coat on herself already. "Andrew?" the woman called, looking around, but she didn't receive a reply. She shook her head. "I'm sure I heard something," she muttered to herself, disappearing out of sight.

Harley listened carefully as the woman went back upstairs, and she crept out from behind her hiding place and she went into the kitchen and took a look outside the back garden. Harley knew there was a garden gate leading into the garden that she knew she could use so long as the woman upstairs didn't hear.

Quietly she stepped into the kitchen and unlocked the backdoor, and she went into the garden, pressing herself against the wall and moving around it until she reached the gate. Harley looked over the top and saw that the man, the husband, was back. She listened carefully as she heard the front door open and she scaled the gate. Within moments of sticking to the bushes, Harley got out without anyone seeing her.


	6. Chapter 6 Start of the Witch

I'm sorry it's taken so long to update, but I am back now. As usual, I own nothing, you should know the drill by now.

Please let me know what you think.

* * *

Harley Potter: The Black Cat.

Harley smirked while she skipped through the streets of Brighton.

She had never really skipped through streets like this before. It stemmed mostly from the need to go by unnoticed while she had been homeless, but her fortunes had really risen in the last few months, and her personality had brightened up as a result.

Finally, she arrived at the front of a jewellery shop, and she stopped. She looked left and right before she waved her hand over the front of the jewellery shop, opening the shutters and shutting down the security alarms while she unlocked the door and she slipped in while waving her hand again to make sure anyone passing by noticed nothing about what she was doing.

Once inside the jewellery shop, Harley waved her hands again and unlocked every single case and cabinet. She dug into her pockets and pulled out her gloves. The black cotton gloves were turned inside out, so then she wouldn't get her fingerprints on the inside of the gloves. She slipped them on, and she gently went about grabbing every piece of jewellery she could lay her hands on and slipped them into a plastic bag she'd brought with her.

As she worked, Harley let her mind wander. She was delighted she had managed to finally get some semblance of control over her magic. In the past, it hadn't been easy because she had been working on using the emotions she remembered from every single occurrence of her magic whenever she had been bullied by Dudley, or scared by the prospect of a beating or being caught when she had found herself on the streets.

Ever since she had discovered the truth about her past, the lies the Dursleys had been allowed to spread about her mother and father, Harley had desperately struggled to understand her magic and use it to help her. Unfortunately, she had never really had much luck, even when she had tried to use the memory of the emotions she had felt each time she had lost it.

Harley had been inspired by the film and book _Matilda, _hoping to use them as a template. Unfortunately, they hadn't worked. It had occurred to her that perhaps her magic only responded to her _real _emotions, but she couldn't be sure. After trying and failing to master her magic, Harley had almost given up hope even if it was the last thing she wanted to do, considering the fact she had no idea what Dumbledore would do to her if she didn't have some degree of protection from him and his schemes.

But then she had the dream.

She had dreamt of her mother. Harley had been so stunned and amazed when she had encountered this spectre, this echo of the woman who had given birth to her, the woman whom she had once believed was a whore who cared only for sex and drugs and didn't really give a thought at all about her daughter, thanks to the lies perpetrated by her sick relatives.

Harley had been in denial about the image, at first. Why shouldn't she be? While she knew magic existed, she also found it hard to believe it couldn't play with peoples minds by disguising others. But the strange thing was she felt she had believed the woman who claimed to be Lily Potter within seconds, which surprised Harley considering her cynicism.

But…something about the spectre had made Harley accept the truth. She had no idea why. She only knew she did not like it. She didn't like the thought of her mind being tampered with but after a brief talk with her mother, who told her she had been afraid of her only child being killed by Voldemort in cold blood she decided to do something about it.

Harley had wondered what had possessed the woman to send a message of herself and implant it in her daughter's brain. Naturally Lily had said nothing. And no matter how persistent Harley had been the woman refused to reply, but when Harley had woken up she knew precisely why.

There hadn't been any point because when she had woken up, Harley had the memories of her mother in her mind. Every memory; she remembered Lily growing up, Severus Snape, Petunia's spiteful jealousy which transformed very easily and quickly into uncompromising hatred for her own sister, Hogwarts, James Potter and his gang of bullies, Voldemort, the Order of the Phoenix, the war.

And the prophecy.

Lily had not believed in Divination. She didn't believe in the crap, and after seeing things from her perspective and what she knew of tarot cards and crystal balls and the bollocks that was astrology, Harley could honestly say she couldn't blame her mother for thinking the subject was junk. You only had to read the horoscopes in newspapers and in magazines which all told different predictions for different people born under different star-signs to see that, but many people believed them in the magical world.

Her mother had apparently thought the same thing, dismissing the whole subject as worthless when there were so many more subjects in magic which were infinitely superior.

When she had heard about the prophecy although she never heard the full wording of the damn thing thanks to Dumbledore, and his need to keep secrets, Lily's estimations about her old (literally) school headmaster's intellect plummeted.

But, as Harley recalled from the time she had spent going through the memories Lily had transferred over to her, she had quickly gathered while people like James Potter worshipped the ground Dumbledore walked on and likely the toilet he pissed and crapped in in equal measure, her mother had viewed the wizard from a backseat perspective; she was ready to acknowledge he was a great wizard, but she was observant enough to see the flaws behind the so-called legend.

And there were dozens.

Harley shook her head mentally as she remembered watching from her mother's perspective the situation from Hogwarts as the war with Voldemort had escalated slowly while the Dark Wizard had gained more and more support and ground; students from one house lashing out while Dumbledore refused to properly punish them, letting them off with nothing more than a slap on the wrist while ignoring anything major while giving the image to the students the teachers didn't care.

Like her mother, Harley didn't like the impression it gave; to the supremacists, it likely meant Dumbledore didn't care about the muggle-born students one little bit, and they could get away with whatever they wanted. To the muggleborns like her mother, they'd get the impression they were never going to be protected.

But Lily and Harley, both exceptionally intelligent, couldn't help but feel that there was more to it than that, and when she had joined Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix and witnessed firsthand the questionable policies of Dumbledore ordering the Death Eaters, the twisted followers of Voldemort who thought they could do whatever they wished because of their powerful master and the fact they were pureblooded witches and wizards who knew they'd never be punished by the useless Ministry, only be stunned and locked up….Lily had wondered if Dumbledore wanted the Death Eaters to be allowed to live for a specific reason.

Unfortunately Lily had never discovered what the reason was. Looking through her mother's memories, Harley found she was not surprised in the least that her mother had been bemused and then frustrated by Dumbledore's policies; more than once Lily had argued with Dumbledore, one of a small group who felt the war was not being fought logically, they should fight the Death Eaters with fire. More than once Lily had argued with Dumbledore about why the Order _never seemed to arrive in time to stop the Death Eaters from murdering people. _

It was a relief to Harley her mother had not been the only one to be frustrated, although she was disgusted that her own father had not been one of them. It seemed to Harley that her father needed to have a few brain cells put in his head, not only had the idiot no common sense about what war actually entailed, but he also wasn't very bright if his stupid petty pranks against the Slytherins didn't have long term consequences.

But then again whoever said the Marauders were bright?

Oh, they might have been good at magic, but not with common sense.

Harley was left wondering just what the old wizard's plans for her were. Clearly her parents were meant to be killed, of that there was little doubt in her mind considering what she had seen, and her mother's memories which showcased Dumbledore's delaying tactics against the Death Eaters, how the Order never seemed to make _any difference_, how the Order always seemed to stun and petrify the Death Eaters and the ineffectiveness of the stunning curse and how it didn't last long and allowed the Death Eater to get back up again…

It was almost as if Dumbledore not only _wanted the war, _but he was going out of his way to _prolong it _and now she was the principal player.

Harley may not know what the prophecy actually said, but she could guess that in the end there was bound to be a showdown between herself and Voldemort.

From what she could work out from her mother's memories, Voldemort was the prideful, arrogant type. He believed in his own power, so it must have been too much for the bastard that he had been defeated by a baby girl.

With that mindset Harley had no doubt in her mind at all the Dark Lord would come after her again, it was just a case of how and when.

She could almost understand Dumbledore's point of view she needed to be protected, but what offended her the most was he had placed her in an abusive environment, _wiping her memories of her escapes from Number 4, _spelling everyone in the neighbourhood to ignore the abuse, even going so far as to arrange for the firing of a compassionate teacher while at the same time making the police think the accusations of abuse was just a _misunderstanding. _

There was no way in hell Harley was ever going to let the old bastard get away with that.

Harley pushed that aside and concentrated on the burglary. While there was still so much she still was not sure about, especially since she only had her mother's point of view to work with, at least now she was more understanding of the situation. At the same time, she was grateful she had her mother's memories and her experience with magic because it gave her something to work with.

Dumbledore was sure to try to tamper with her mind when they met for the first time at Hogwarts, (okay, technically it wouldn't be for the first time, especially if Dumbledore, or one of his lackeys, had wiped her memories, but it would be the first time they met in a public place where he couldn't do any more damage) and she refused to allow it.

Fortunately, her mother knew of the mind arts and she had gained a lot of knowledge in them. The knowledge she had passed on to her daughter. Granted, Harley had no idea what strength her occlumency barriers were at, but the visualisation of her barriers as a mixture of mist and fog while her knowledge and memories were blanketed by a massive invisibility cloak (she had been inspired by the Potter cloak; she wondered what had happened to the cloak since it had gone missing and it had terrified her father since he was sure he had put it in a certain place carefully with full knowledge of where it was. And then it went missing), hiding a massive city on an island containing her thoughts and memories, shielded by an enormous sea filled with mythical creatures, like the Kraken, or prehistoric animals like the Megalodon while submarines, pirate ships armed to the teeth, prowled on patrol while massive dragons raining fire, acid, poisonous barbs would cause a huge amount of pain and carnage if anyone did manage to see through the invisibility barrier.

Harley had the choice of organising her thoughts in either an orderly or chaotic fashion. She had opted for the chaotic. She had disguised her thoughts and memories as a number of disordered pieces of junk. She had been inspired by a large shop in the Laines, where you could get old and new books, knickknacks, even clothes. She had taken the image after visiting the place again, and she had seen the contents laid out in an ordered but somehow chaotic manner as the building blocks of setting up her occlumency barriers.

Once she was finished, Harley left the jewellery shop…only to run into someone.

Startled, Harley struggled although she didn't notice the stranger was just as surprised as she happened to be, and as she did one of the looser pieces of jewellery in her bag fell out and dropped to the ground with a chink.

The stranger looked down. "Hey, are you stealing all this?"

Harley stubbornly said nothing.

The stranger chuckled, and Harley went still and took a good look at him while she prepared one of the karate moves she had gained from her recent lessons. The dim lighting didn't really give her a good idea of his features, but there was enough there to see he was tall, with short, close-cropped hair and sharp-featured while he dressed in dark clothes. She looked into his eyes, and she used her fledgeling legilimency powers to read his mind.

Harley quickly saw he was named Tommy Carver. He was a robber, had been for a long time in his life. Harley could see he wasn't a wizard, and he had no knowledge of magic, so she would need to be careful and cautious around him.

"What do you want?" she asked.

Carver smirked. "I was going to break into that jewellery shop when I saw the door was open," he said, nodding at the door. "How did you get in?"

"Would you answer the same question if it was directed towards you?"

"No," Carver admitted, a smirk on his face, but Harley kept a close watch over him, and she didn't retract her legilimency probe. She could see he was a little peeved by the lack of a good answer.

Harley stared at him for a long, hard moment. She watched as his eyes glazed over as she mentally wiped his memory of seeing her. At the same time, Harley looked through his memories and learnt of his contacts, fences, and his methods. She saw everything about his past, and what he had learnt, and what she was bound to have picked up herself later, but what she had just found in his mind had given her much more to work with for her future.

Harley walked off, leaving Carver behind.


	7. Chapter 7 A Case of Bad Luck

I don't own Harry Potter, so I have to make do with Fanfiction.

I am sorry for how long it has taken for this story to be updated, but I have been busy with the writing of new stories and old ones, and the writing of my own novel. I hope every one of you is okay, and I hope everything goes back to normal soon.

In the meantime, Enjoy!

* * *

Harley Potter the Black Cat.

As soon as she stepped through the gates of the school, Harley knew things were going to be rough.

It would have been the height of stupid for her to say ever since she had entered the foster home, things were going well for her. Sure, the foster home was nice, the staff were nice although she tolerated them rather than liked them, and she didn't reveal anything about herself in casual conversation - she was not stupid, she didn't know what they would do if they knew the truth about her (the Dursleys, not the fact she was a real witch), but what worried her the most about them was if they discovered her past with the Dursleys, one of them in a well-meaning but completely ignorant about the long term results would alert the authorities, and drag the Dursleys back into her life.

Each time Harley spoke to them, she thought through everything she said in her responses.

But other than that, everything was cool. She got to read what she liked, and she was able to watch TV. Like a normal kid.

Harley had grown to hate the word _normal. _Seriously. Each time she heard it, she wanted to cut the tongues out of the mouths of the people who even spoke the first syllable. There were no normal people in the world, at least not as the Dursleys had seen the word. To them, normal was living in a nice house, eating lots of food, insulting or bullying people, beating up little kids just because they were the ones doing it while looking down on others because they didn't have what the Dursleys had.

In her case…

Harley had tried to be normal, but it hadn't worked. All she'd earned for her trouble was a lot of pain and mental injury. As soon as she entered the magical world, Harley planned on seeing a mind healer to help her repair the damage the Dursleys had inflicted psychologically on her. She was not going to enter the wizarding world or her future with a damaged mind.

In any case, after what she had learnt about abused children abusing their own kids, it had made her even more determined to meet up with a mind healer frequently.

Anyway, that was in the past. Harley had a good life even though it would be, in her opinion, perfect if she knew where Vanessa, Liam, and Colleen were; she was a burglar, she had discovered her magic and she was mastering it every day, and her powers were growing with each day. She was also enjoying school, and although she was too standoffish towards the other kids, Harley was kind to them but she was not close to them.

Like every good thing that happened, there was a bad thing as well. She had exchanged one bully for another, however, this one was not like Dudley. This was was a girl, Jenna Cole. Like most victims of bullying, Harley genuinely had no idea what it was about her which had attracted the attention of Jenna. And after a while, Harley had just tuned the girl out. It was hard though, Jenna enjoyed lashing out at people, picking up little bits of their appearance.

Jenna had been bullying Harley for months, but the dark-haired girl had mostly taken to ignoring her. Harley had stopped caring about petty things like bullying for a long time now after living on the streets where she had endured things much worse than ignorant little bastards and bitches who honestly made such a big deal about things as trivial as whether or not your hair was curly or you had braces supporting your teeth. Sure, when she had first left the Dursleys it had been a leftover problem, one she had needed to learn to deal with.

She had gotten better. She had also learnt some basic martial arts moves and she had been taught the basics in self-defence, and as a result, she tuned Jenna out, knowing if the girl did try anything she would lash out. Fortunately, however, the girl seemed to be content with her bullying methods which were to creep up behind her victims, surprise them from the side, and what she did during those times were just as simple; Jenna would throw their stuff to the ground, or she would throw you to the ground, all the time spotting off nasty abuse.

All that had happened to Harley, and sometimes the other girl would be in an awful mood which just made things even more unpleasant.

"Hello there, Shorty," Jenna leered as she approached with her friends (Harley had not gotten their names, or more accurately she had but she had simply forgotten them because they weren't worth her time; they were just doing for Jenna what Piers and the others had done for Dudley, but they weren't as extreme) who followed after like the good little minions they were.

Harley gave them a bored look. Height jokes were boring. In any case, the other girl was only a few inches taller than Harley was herself. "Good morning to you too, Jenna," she said in a could not give a damn kind of tone. Her bored expression only made Jenna angrier.

"You think you are so smart? Poor orphaned little Harriet, I am an orphan so everyone must feel sorry for me, no parents although they probably dumped you," Jenna mocked, laughing her head off as if she imagined she had just made one of the funniest jokes ever in the history of humanity while sending a glance at her two friends while unaware what Harley was thinking to herself, who were looking uncomfortable with this line of bullying since it touched a very touchy subject. But they were more frightened of Jenna, and so they laughed when she looked at them.

"My name is Harley to you," Harley glared at the girl. If there was one thing guaranteed to piss her off it was someone mocking her name, or giving her a name which wasn't right. The Dursleys and their fucked up friends had done it, and they had the hatred into Harley's mind. Years and years of being called 'freak' or 'Girl' had made that all the more true.

However, that old hatred went hand in hand with all the times she had been mocked in the past by the Dursleys, who had shoved the propaganda down her throat her mother was a whore and her dad was a good for nothing unemployed drunk in order to make her meekly bow her head and willingly done her own chains.

Harley was forever grateful that her mother had had the foresight to take steps to ensure her daughter's long term future instead of swallowing the crap of that fucked up family, and Dumbledore's never-ending lies.

But right now Harley just wanted to make this bitch pay.

"What?" Jenna gave her a bemused look, but it was bellied by the nasty-looking sneer crossing her mouth.

"My name is Harley, not Harriet. And you know nothing about my parents, so don't make assumptions," Harley repeated, clenching her fists while everyone in the playground looked on in anticipation. Young or old, the prospect of a fight never failed to make people excited. She didn't care, she wanted nothing more than to beat Jenna up. She did not care how the school saw it, she didn't care about the consequences…. She also didn't care if Jenna lashed out and pointing out the flaw in her retort; in Jenna's mind, how would she (Harley) know about her parents, but then again she might just, with luck, ignore it as it was a touchy subject. Whatever Jenna did, Harley was prepared. In the meantime, she prepared herself for a fight.

She wanted to commit murder. She wanted to not only make this bitch pay for what she was saying and doing not just to herself, but to every other kid who crossed her.

"Harley, Harriet, what's the difference?" Jenna smirked. "You're still an orphan. My dad says people like you are draining the economy, that's why everyone gets shitty jobs, which is bad 'cause I really want to have the best in life, like a mansion house, servants, and a pony."

Harley sneered. "Nothing to stop you whoring yourself out, Jenna," she spat, although she wondered to herself if Jenna was actually telling the truth about what her daddy had said. The fact the other girl was forced to attend this particular school spoke volumes in itself, but she didn't know enough about the other girl's life to be sure. She also didn't care.

Everyone stilled as everyone gasped at what Harley had just said. The school itself was quite close to a rough neighbourhood in Whitehawk, so every kid who came here were more than aware of the realities of the world. They knew precisely what Harley had just said. In any case, there were rumours about Jenna's family which no-one had proven. A sudden and startling change came over Jenna. Her expression froze, her mouth parted an inch as if she were about to say something but Harley's retort had snatched the wind out of her lungs, while her friends looked at each other in terror.

"What did you say?" Jenna whispered.

For a moment Harley thought she had gone too far. She could see that the words she'd used against her enemy had affected her, although she had no idea just how badly. "I told you there was nothing to stop you from whoring yourself out, Jenna," she replied, refusing to back down, and why should she after what the other girl had done.

However, she was taken by surprise when Jenna shrieked like a banshee and threw herself onto her. Harley gasped as she felt a pair of hands wrap around her throat, squeezing tightly. Everything seemed to drift into slow motion, and Harley was distantly aware of people shouting on the peripheral of her awareness, but she felt she was falling. And then she felt an impact with the grainy texture of the playground, and then the world resumed its original pace. Jenna was strangling her while straddling her. Harley gasped as she struggled to breathe with the other girl sitting on her chest.

"You freak!" Jenna was hollering. "I'll kill you for that!" With that, she began choking Harley harder while the other kids hollered "FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!"

Harley was gasping, opening her mouth desperately to suck in as much air into her mouth as she possibly could when Jenna threw that threat, but what really pissed her off was the use of the word freak. She didn't understand why people felt that they had the need to use it on her, especially since thanks to her mother's memories about her practicing magic she had grown very good at preventing outbursts of accidental magic. It seemed the word was just used by people brazenly against those who seemingly had nothing.

Harley felt her temper flare-up, but she caught onto it, using her occlumency to make sure the anger didn't activate her magic and do something which would be very hard to explain. Instead, Harley used her occlumency and channelled the anger she was feeling while she poured it into her hands. Her magic, restrained as it was by her mental control, fought every step of the way, wanting nothing more than to break out and punish the one harming the witch.

But Harley held onto her control. She pushed the magic into her hand and arm muscles, strengthening them. She grabbed onto Jenna's hands which were currently still wrapped around her throat, choking the life out of her, and she effortlessly pulled the other girl off of her.

"Hey, how are you doing that?" Jenna's eyes were wide with surprise, and she wasn't the only one surprised either.

Harley didn't bother to reply, her mind was already focused on the hurriedly assembled plan. She dropped one of the hands before she lashed out with a solid punch to the gut, making Jenna clutch it with a choked shriek of agony.

"THAT'S ENOUGH!"

Harley looked around, and she groaned when she spotted two of the teachers hurrying towards them. Even for where she was lying, watching as the teachers ran towards her and Jenna, her brain becoming disorientated since the view was upside down.

One of the teachers grabbed hold of the still sore Jenna and pulled her off of Harley's body before another took Harley's arm and yanked. Harley yelped and shakily got back on her feet.

"I saw what you did," the teacher still holding her said, face red with anger.

Harley said nothing. She wasn't sure if the teachers would see Jenna as the victim, but if they did, and if they heard what she had said to the girl, they would see her as the bad girl. Harley had never complained about the bullying. She had learnt that lesson a long time ago in Little Whinging, and while things were different here, Jenna not living with her and her family never bothering her the way Dudley and the others had, Harley had never let go of that conditioning.

She was better off on her own.

No-One was going to help her.

The only person who could help her was herself.

It was a creed that she had lived by all her life, why should her future be any different?

XXX

"What were you thinking, Harley?" David's voice was low, but she had known the man who ran the foster home long enough to know he had worked out the best way to get his point across was not to shout but to whisper.

Harley sighed. She'd had nothing but grief all day today. First, after Jenna had been prised off of her chest, she'd been shouted at by the teachers. Second, she was hauled off to the headmaster, and she was shouted at as well before everyone avoided her at school, although she wasn't really bothered by that. She wasn't sorry she'd gotten back at Jenna, but even she knew she'd sunk fairly low when she'd insulted her.

And now she was sitting in front of David, the manager of the foster home (she was not really sure what the real title was, but she just thought of him as the manager), and lastly Sarah, who was standing in the back of the room with her arms folded. Sarah was a social worker. She was annoying and seemed to think all problems in life could be solved by her. It was a nice thought, but she never really that her involvement was truly not wanted.

Harley, despite her longstanding distrust of people in general, had known from the moment she had met the woman she did not want her digging in too far into her life.

She was grateful that she had never given her full name to these guys, ever. Knowing her luck, Sarah, who was as annoying as 'Elaine the Pain' from the Tracey Beaker stories, would delve in deeply and try to find any records of another kid with her name who'd gone missing. And she would likely find the Dursleys. And then Sarah, believing everything she was doing was for the best of intentions without any consideration of the consequences and utterly ignoring the questions of how Harley had gotten her scars, or even why she had run away in the first place, would contact the Dursleys and then it would happen all over again.

As a result Harley just did not tell them anything about her past. They already had a good idea thanks to the scars that crisscrossed her back like a grotesque lattice of torn flesh, but then against Sarah was not very bright.

But Harley was confused about why the woman was here. It was likely the school had contacted her because she was a social worker. It was typical of the school and the general attitude of everyone here to just push issues and problems onto the shoulders of somebody else. Their idea was good in theory, especially since Sarah could do a great deal, but the truth was there wasn't anything the woman could do, not unless she found some way of stopping people like Jenna from bullying others. Harley knew there was a better chance of a witch sending a pig into orbit than Sarah persuading Jenna from bullying her.

"Harley, what possessed you to do all that, insulting Jenna like that was spiteful enough, but to punch her like that was nasty," Sarah interrupted, earning an annoyed glare from David, a glare the woman ignored.

Harley wasn't annoyed. She knew Sarah wasn't popular.

"I can handle this, thank you, Sarah," David said pointedly. Sarah looked abashed, ignored by David who turned back to Harley.

"Well, Harley, what happened?"

Harley was torn, really; she had never imagined she would ever encounter adults she liked, but while she was very guarded against them, she did respect David. He wasn't like the bastards she'd dealt with in the past, but while she didn't trust him she did respect him. At the moment she wondered whether or not to tell him everything that had happened.

"You didn't hear her, David," Harley whispered.

"Oh, what did she say?"

"Well, aside from calling me short which is as imaginative as thinking a saucepan made of chocolate can cook, getting my name wrong, mocking me for being an orphan, what did she expect me to do?"

"I know what you should have done, you should have gone to a teacher. You shouldn't have punched her like that," David scolded.

Harley only just managed to stop herself from lashing out, using her occlumency to control her irritation. Unfortunately, she hated it being shoved in her face about what should have happened rather than her, heaven forbid, taking the law into her own hands. These people knew only the basics of her story, how she had left the streets.

Sometimes Harley felt like one of those people who'd been raised by animals like their own children, and was forcibly removed and put into a civilised society where they would be looked down upon for failing to act the right way, or been punished because other people had attacked them and they'd responded the only way they knew how…

She hated that.

The rest of the meeting didn't offer anything insightful, so she was eventually let go and she went upstairs to her bedroom where she would spend the rest of the night by herself. She didn't care, she liked the silence and the solitude. As she looked around her room, however, Harley realised she really had no idea what she was going to be doing now by herself. Biting her lip as she looked around for inspiration, Harley spotted her collection of Catwoman and Spider-Man's Black Cat comics arranged in their neat piles.

She had purchased the comics from Dave's Comics, a comic shop in the Laines. She had gotten them mostly for inspiration for her cat burglary career, although she knew female burglars didn't dress in skintight black leather costumes with cat-like ears rising above their heads. No, burglars were more like Harry and Marv from the _Home Alone _franchise, albeit not as stupid. They were ordinary people, who used tools like blowtorches or crowbars to get into places, coming up with various schemes to get rich. They didn't race across rooftops into tight high-heeled boots or use bullwhips.

Harley walked over to the comics and picked up the piles and walked back to her bed, and she began to read after she flipped one open. As she read through the comics, snorting mentally at what the writing team devising these stories had come up with, she tried to put herself into the shoes, or boots, of Felicia Hardy and Selina Kyle, forcing herself to forget how the two women dressed, Harley just shut down her brain and focused on the comics.

While she liked both characters, she preferred Selina to Felicia; while she liked the platinum blonde-haired thief, who had worked long and hard to become a successful career cat burglar, Harley was just mystified by the reason why the writers of her character had changed her so drastically into a superhero.

Harley knew enough about the two characters, their similarities to guess Marvel comics had realised they had copied too much from DC comics' Catwoman to make the differences credible. But Harley felt the character, despite having several interesting arcs and stories which developed her character to incredible degrees, should have remained a criminal. Instead of fancying Spider-Man like Catwoman had a thing for Batman, Felicia could have perhaps had a fascination with the wall-crawler, but nothing more than that.

She could have started travelling the world, stealing from all sorts of people, and going through dozens of incredible adventures. Instead, she had become one of those two-dimensional superheroes who didn't realise they could not save everyone. For months, Harley had written dozens of stories featuring alternative versions of Felicia doing just that after she had learnt of the theories of the multiverse in the hopes of making someone better.

She had come up with several stories already; in one story, Felicia Hardy never even met Spider-Man, therefore she couldn't have become a crime-fighter, and she travelled the world committing one theft after another. In a second story she had written, she had depicted Felicia as a girl who had begun committing small-time thefts as a kid, then she would become a master cat burglar who again travelled the world, picking up new skills as she went. In a story where she did meet Spider-Man, Black Cat would still fancy him, but she would become so frustrated by his constant whining about how miserable his life was after getting close enough to him so she'd know who he was so his past would unfold for her so she'd know about what happened with Uncle Ben. Yes, she would feel sad, but she would wonder why Peter wasn't at least trying to enjoy life even if he had the annoying voice of his uncle telling him time and again _With great power, comes great responsibility. _

Harley understood and approved the philosophy, but there was taking something seriously and not trying to enjoy life. In her mind, Peter Parker was a whiny, insecure individual who, despite having a better social life to what he had before, as a kid, he wasn't even trying to have a life. Oh, he went on a few dates, had some friends, but his life as Spider-Man consumed his entire existence.

But as she read the collection of comics depicting Black Cat's existence in Spider-Man's life, Harley ignored those issues, guessing someone in the future would come up with an alternative version of Spider-Man who would make him strike a balance between his guilt-ridden super-heroics which were a result of what had happened when he had failed to use his powers to stop that crook from escaping, and going on to murder Uncle Ben.

As Harley went through the comics, studying each speech bubble and picture closely so she could pass the time, she came across the parts where Black Cat rigged up several traps in order to take advantage of the superstition surrounding black cats and making everyone who triggered them she herself was bad luck incarnate. Harley had always been fascinated by that aspect of the Black Cat's methods; in her mind, it was a strike against Catwoman, who only succeeded thanks to experience and skill, but this showed intricate planning.

And then she realised something.

Bad luck.

What if she used the same methodology in her burglaries, particularly the bigger ones? For instance, if she got into an art gallery, not impossible although Harley preferred stealing from houses, small businesses, there was still the possibility of breaking into a block of flats where someone might still be inside; instead of smacking them with a baseball bat, a sock full of sand, she could use her magic to simulate moments of bad luck.

As she sat back, lifting her head, Harley thought about the possibilities.

Yes, she could do it. She could use her magic to create illusions where someone could either be tricked or distracted so no-body even realised she was there. The means she could put that work to was in the comics in front of her. It shouldn't be difficult to use what was there, rework it all for the real world where she used magic, and there were millions of new possibilities. Harley stood up, dropping her comics on the bed and she walked over to the window and looked out thoughtfully.

Harley's control over her magic was good enough, so there was almost no limit to what she could do. But she knew she needed to be realistic; without a wand, she would need to make the tricks as simple as she could. Would she need to compensate for that? The children's home had access to UK Gold, so she'd watched a few _Jonathan Creek _stories, where the main character was a creative consultant to a womanising dick who was a stage magician. But Jonathan was an analytical individual, able to look at an illusion and knowing how the trick worked. Likewise, he had found it pathetically simple to use the same expertise to help him solve seemingly unsolvable crimes.

What if she used simple illusions to make crimes work for her, using either a combination of magic or simply no magic? Why not? It was possible. However, she would need to experiment with it. All she knew was she would need to make each experiment as small scale and as simple as possible. Harley smiled. She loved conducting research, developing hiker knowledge and learning her boundaries. She honestly believed it was one of the best ways of learning, and in any case, she loved getting new ideas and developing them until she came to the next one. Thanks to her research techniques, she had quickly learnt how to unlock simple padlocks to more complicated safes, all with one spell, which she had learnt to manipulate to make it either weak or strong.

The young witch looked out of the window silently, her mind going over everything that she felt she could do. This was the primary problem with her own controlled experiments, she usually didn't know where to start. In this case, Harley was even more uncertain; the comics about Felicia Hardy's character showed simple ways how Felicia had spread the myth she was causing bad luck, but Harley felt her own approach should be more refined, calculating. The only issue was, how did she go about it?

Letting out a frustrated groan, Harley rested her head gently against the window, sighing with relief at the cold feel of the glass as she considered her previous experiments. They were still ongoing; in her mind, nothing she learnt or experimented on was closed off just because she felt she knew everything. Her mother had studied magic with a thirst for learning, she hadn't ever stopped even if others felt they knew it all. Harley had inherited the same attitude.

Harley mulled it over in her head for a few minutes before she walked over to her desk. Opening a drawer she pulled out a rubber, and she stood it up and walked back to the bed. When she was sitting down on the bed, Harley focused on the rubber; it wasn't much of a model, but it was a good place to start. She sat on the bed, focusing on the rubber while she visualised it as a person, someone walking down the street. Someone about to trip up over their own feet.

Harley sat back, looking thoughtfully at the rubber. It wasn't the most elaborate experiment, but it was the most basic experiment she could think of.

She knew there were others to carry out, but this one was, what she considered a good start. And it gave her ideas of what to do next to generate bad luck. The key was patience. She knew that while she'd have ideas and there would be simple and easy ways she could make someone experience a moment of bad luck, but she wasn't going to rush it. She had dozens of spells in her arsenal which she could use to make it seem they'd cause bad luck, but she was nowhere near the right level where she'd consider herself an expert.

At this point, she had only ideas of what she wanted to do, but she needed time to see how to make them work. She would begin her real experiments in the morning.

XXX

Harley's first experiment began in the morning as she went on her way to school. She watched as a newspaper boy was going from house to house, using a bicycle to move from street to street. Harley had seen him often enough, but she didn't know him personally; he was just somebody on the edge of her peripheral. As she watched him shove another newspaper through the letterbox of one of the houses she was passing, Harley considered using him as an experiment.

She watched him carefully, noted every single move he made, how he cycled from one house to another who had a subscription to the newspaper he delivered, how he pushed them through each of the letterboxes, sometimes he would push one through a letterbox, but once or twice he'd hand a paper over to somebody in person.

As she observed him go about his business, Harley's mind raced as she tried to work out how to induce a brief moment of bad luck into his activities. She only needed one small moment, that was it. Nothing big, just a simple trick. Logically, she could see ways of causing him bad luck just as logically she could see ways of making it all happen in the first place; the newspaper might get jammed into the letterbox, the cycle might get a puncture in the wheels, he might fall off…. Oh, there were so many ways, but she decided to go for something a bit more straightforward.

She concentrated on the bike, specifically the front wheel. Even from where she was standing, the wheel made a nice little popping sound just as he was about to wheel on to his next port of call. Harley watched in satisfaction as the newspaper boy almost flew over the top of his handlebars, but he managed to stop himself just in time. It was lucky he hadn't managed to build up enough momentum for that to happen, otherwise, he would have been badly hurt. Right now he was just frustrated as he examined the bike to see about the puncture.

Harley wasn't worried about that when she had cast the spell she had just wanted the tear to be very small. It was easily fixed, but it would take the paperboy a while. He would need to find a way to patch up the tyre or replace it altogether, and if he went for the original route he would need to pump it full of air.

Still, for a beginning, it wasn't a bad one at all. Sure she would need to really practice, but still, this black cat was on the rise.

_Hmm, Black Cat, that has a nice ring to it_, Harley thought to herself with a smirk as she walked to school.


	8. Chapter 8 The Art of Misdirection

**I am so sorry I haven't updated this story for quite some time, but I hope you enjoy what I've written. Please let me know what you think, and once more I do not own Harry Potter. **

**Enjoy. **

* * *

Harley Potter: the Black Cat.

_Hmm, the last few 'bad luck' experiments seemed to go brilliantly; okay, granted the time that van stalled at the roundabout wasn't a good move on my part, especially considering all of that traffic, but I did it with the best of intentions since there was that woman with the pram and that little kid, _Harley thought to herself as she was idly lazing on her bed, looking up at the ceiling while she mentally went over all of her recent experiments, using her magic to induce moments of 'bad luck,' and although she had been doing it for a brief time now, Harley knew it would have to go to the next level at some point.

Harley knew she would need to begin to commit burglaries, using her magic to make it look like there was bad luck being induced; she'd only been conducting the bad luck experiments for the last three weeks, and they seemed to have worked so far, but she wanted to do what Marvel's Black Cat did; use her expertise and come up with imaginative tricks to give the illusion of bad luck, while at the same time she would be thinking on her feet.

That wasn't a problem for her.

Since she was an experienced burglar Harley knew how to do that, she had been doing it for years.

Besides, she wouldn't have escaped from Little Whinging if she hadn't used her imagination, coming up with the plan of escaping from Mrs Figg given how the old hag's security was minimalist compared to the almost prison-like dump favoured by Petunia and Vernon but she'd needed time to plot out her moves, taking them forward day by day and perform the tasks she'd needed to get through, getting everything she had planned down until she finally left Surrey and had some idea of how to think on her feet.

Harley got off her bed and she stretched a little and performed a few yoga and pilates moves so then she could get some circulation back into her body while she made plans to commit burglaries focused around her new bad luck experiments, but so far she had nothing to work on; her brain had been focusing on inducing moments of bad luck, using her knowledge of spells to make it all possible, but at the moment she had nothing but a few basic ideas of how to steal with the method.

Rubbing her temples, Harley whispered to herself, "Think, brain, think…," suddenly Harley paused and stiffened when she heard several someones running up the stairs, laughing until they passed by and then it went silent. Harley sighed. "I should really think about talking to myself in my room where anyone could overhear," she muttered to herself in irritation.

Harley left her bedroom and the house and went out into the garden, taking a large book out of her collection so she could give the illusion she was reading to herself in the garden where she could think. Her brain was now focusing on that matter, and she could already feel the ghosts of one or two ideas slipping into her mind. When she got to the garden doors, Harley saw there were a few kids outside, but that was okay with her since she knew she could just sit and read quietly while she focused on making some of her plans. Walking to a tree, Harley sat down and opened her book and pretended to get focused on what was printed in the book so she could think and reflect.

Ever since she had begun experimenting with her magic, Harley had been focusing less on burglary so then she could learn from the experiences of making people trip, fall, or drop things if they were holding them, and coming up with newer experiments along the way to build up her knowledge and expertise for much later.

She knew that this Dumbledore guy was out there who was ready to spirit her back to the Dursleys where they'd once more be free to beat the life out of her before she reached her next birthday while she forgot the last few years of her life. She knew that was what was likely to happen since Dumbledore wanted her to be beaten down before she went to his school.

She was just glad she now had her mother's memories; while they helped her to understand and remember the terrible magical war from her mother's memories, and how she, Harley, was prophesied to be the one to take down this Dark Lord, Lord Voldemort, she honestly had little idea how her being beaten into a pulp by her so-called relatives was going to help in a war, although at the same time she had to admit it made some degree of sense.

Dumbledore saw her as a weapon, and a weapon needed to be developed and honed until it was perfect although she could guess without any shadow of doubt Dumbledore wouldn't want her to be as well perfected as she was now.

Harley shook her head, pushing the Dursleys and Dumbledore out of her mind, and she looked around the garden for inspiration before she realised she didn't have any ideas other than to simply pick a few targets, case them out, and go on from there. It was the method she had used over the years, and it worked, so all she would need to do would be to follow her original methodology.

Actually, that gave her an idea.

Original methodology.

What if she picked pockets like she had done in the past, with the guys (she would not think about the last day, how she'd had to watch their terrified faces as the police took them away)? It would certainly work; if she could distract her marks, cause them to trip or something, then she could nick their wallets or purses while they were distracted.

But at the same time, she was reluctant. Brighton was a great place for pickpockets given how it was a tourist magnet and all that, but Harley was a burglar. In any case, she hadn't really bothered practicing her pickpocketing moves for a long time, not since she'd been taken off of the streets, but some things never left.

At least that was the hope. In any case, she wasn't planning on picking pockets for long, perhaps a fortnight, maybe even a few more weeks over that limit but only if she felt pleased with the results. By the time she began, Harley knew she would have a much stronger grasp on the theory enough to form newer, bigger plans for burglaries.

At the same time… Harley had fallen in love with the _Jonathan Creek _series for several reasons. The first was because she liked the deadpan way Alan Davies portrayed Jonathan, and how he was able to picture things some people simply weren't mentally capable of visualising without outside aid; while she liked Maddy, Harley wished the writers would give the woman a better chance to grow as a person, instead of constantly portraying the same big-mouthed journalist who kept on spouting incredibly ridiculous ideas without even trying to stretch her brain to capacity.

Second, Harley liked the episode showing the portrait which went missing when it was in fact hidden away inside a hollow door. That in itself had given her dozens of ideas, and it had put her in mind of creating her own illusions. She had even gotten hold of a few books on illusion; she didn't bother nor did she really care about those incredibly stupid card tricks because she knew she couldn't do them - she had tried - and she was going through one or two of them while at the same time, she watched the show and made notes about what she needed to do.

Harley knew as a witch these tricks were nothing compared to what she could actually do, but there was only so much she could actually do without a wand available, so she just needed to work with what she had, but the books were still good for putting her into the kind of mindset she needed. When she had found herself on the streets, Harley had not known how to survive on her own, but she had learnt quickly and she had quickly adapted to the situation. This was nothing different.

She would use her new skills to pickpockets, and she knew she would come up with ideas for how to burgle people in their homes with the same methods.

XXX

Vivian Lomas had never visited the South Coast of Britain until now, although when she had planned out her holiday originally she hadn't purposefully planned to come down to Brighton at all. As a native of Glasgow, she had always holidayed in places like Inverness, the Highlands; her parents had never wanted her to venture far from their native Scotland. But that had changed when she had hit her teens, and her friends had come back from places like Hawaii, California, or even Tokyo. But Vivian wasn't that brave, well not yet.

She wanted to see more of the British Isles before she ventured any further, and so far Brighton was fulfilling the desire amazingly well. Technically, she was staying in Victoria in London, and she had come down here for the day because she had decided to visit the capital city of Britain originally. And then she had seen, from the railway station, it was a massive hub with connections to places she considered exotic. Brighton, Worthing, Portsmouth, Southhampton, and a place called Uckfield might have sounded boring to commuters who came from there, exactly like a native of Glasgow would have simply shrugged their shoulders dismissively at the mention of Cumbernauld, but for Vivian, they were places to just visit. She had already spent the first four days of her holiday travelling around London, travelling on one of those famous red-double decker buses to places she didn't even know. London was a maze, much bigger than Glasgow.

She had visited Buckingham Palace and seen one of those famous guards with that massive furry hat she had never gotten the name of - Vivian personally thought the thing looked like someone had dumped a giant thimble onto their heads and decorated them with fur - and she'd enjoyed snapping a few pictures of the guy before she'd left. She'd visited a few museums - the London Transport museum reminded her slightly of the exhibits of the Riverside Museum back home, only it was much larger, and dedicated to the transport history of London, but her favourite museum was the Natural History Museum with its incredible collection, and she had visited the Zoo.

However, one thing which had surprised the native Glaswegian was the Tube, although she was used to the idea of a subway underneath the city, the London Underground was enormous; instead of there just being a single, simple loop under the ground, there were several underground railway lines directly under the city, linking places like Essex to Surrey (she wondered if she should bother visiting those places, or if she should just focus on other parts of Britain before making her way back up north, but there was plenty of time for her to make up her mind).

However, she had problems with it.

The London Underground was nothing like the clean, efficient, and simple railway she was used to and proud to use, as a Glaswegian. She also felt it was dirty, overcrowded, but it had upset her that the underground railway she used was just a loop, and didn't link places where there was little in the way of transport.

In any case, she was pleased to have come here to Brighton. The only seasides she had visited were in Scotland, but this was a whole new experience for her. There were so many people down here, lying and lazing around on the beach, sunbathing or cooking on portable barbecues so the scent of burning meats mixed with the air. She wasn't sure how to take it, personally, but it smelt good.

Vivian was walking down a ramp leading to the beach when suddenly she cried out when she suddenly tripped. She went flying, but she was caught around the waist by a pair of thin arms.

"Are you okay?" Vivian found herself looking into the face of a young girl, much shorter than she was with emerald green eyes.

"Y-yeah, I think so," Vivian had time to say, but she stopped when she realised while she was lucky to be okay, her purse wasn't so lucky; the purse fell out of her handbag, and it crashed to the floor and the purse opened, and money fell out.

Vivian dropped to the ground to gather everything there, and she was surprised when the girl who'd helped her dropped to the ground as well.

When they were finished gathering the money, the girl handed Vivian the cash that had fallen out of her purse with a smile.

"Thanks!" Vivian smiled while the girl's own smile widened.

It wouldn't be until much later when she was back in her hotel room, she had lost a £10 note.

XXX

Victoria Masterson had been doing her job at Curiouser & Curiouser for five years, and she enjoyed every moment of it; she got the chance of meeting new people all the time, and she loved how her shop was smack bang in what she considered, in her humble opinion the best part of Brighton. As she went around the jewellers' shop carrying a tray to one of the displays, she saw there was only a blonde-haired girl. Victoria barely paid her much attention besides being a little bit curious about why such a small, young girl was in her shop.

The girl was just walking from one display case to the next, her eyes wide with wonder as she surveyed the jewels. Victoria kept her eye on the young kid, knowing she wasn't anyone to worry about. Something about her just seemed honest…

Suddenly Victoria let out a cry as she seemed to slip in her knee-high heels and she went flying backwards. She felt her vision explode in agony when she felt her the back of her head hit the ground. "Ow!" She then cursed vividly, English words in her vocabulary forming creative curses.

Victoria felt a presence near her. "Are you okay?" She opened her eyes and found herself looking up into what appeared to be a pair of sparkling emeralds. It took her a moment to recognise she was looking into the eyes of the girl, who was kneeling next to her with a look of concern Victoria was touched.

"Y-yes," Victoria replied feeling embarrassed and slightly ashamed she had cursed in front of this kid. "I'm fine. Just slipped-.'

"I know, I saw it," the girl smiled comfortingly down at her before she stood up and held out her hand. "Here, let me help you up."

Victoria handed the girl her hand, and with surprising strength for a girl her size and apparent age, Victoria was helped back on her feet.

"Thank you," Victoria said as she found herself back on her feet, looking down at her boots with irritation. She didn't intend on wearing the damn things to work, ever again.

"You're welcome," the girl smiled brightly, "do you need help with this?" She gestured around the store where the jewellery had fallen to the ground.

Victoria blew out a breath, considering. "Er, no, thank you for the offer though, but I can manage," she smiled down at the kid as if worried she'd offended her.

But the girl just smiled and walked out of the shop. Victoria smiled after her. "What a nice kid," she said to herself, before she sighed to herself as she looked down at the mess, and she started getting down on her knees and picking up all the jewellery she'd dropped. As she worked, she thought to herself she had thought she'd placed a couple of rings on the tray, but she felt it must have been her imagination.

XXX

Back in her bedroom at the children's home, Harley looked down at the collection on her bed. Pushed into a small heap on her bed was a collection of notes, coins, and even a few pieces of jewellery.

"Not bad," she thought to herself as she grinned at the collection. "Not bad at all for a few days of work. At least I've worked through enough of it to get an idea what I'd like to try next…."

Harley let a smirk cross her lips as she considered what she was planning on doing next. On her recent few days, she had been doing her research, and she had her next mark.

And it was going to be glorious…


End file.
